He said Superior Court Judge David A. Wiseman should “be commended for having the courage to do the right thing” when he imposed a lower prison term on a nonresident convicted of “ice” charges.
“I was satisfied with the sentence imposed by Judge Wiseman [who knew] he may receive some criticism from the community,” Hardwicke said.
“I think our drug laws in the CNMI are draconian but studies show that such laws do not have a deterrent effect on criminal behavior,” he added.
Hardwicke said his client, Jing Xin Xiao, was convicted of selling and possessing three grams of “ice.”
“When [he was] arrested, police believed that a container of cooking sugar in his kitchen was 200 grams of ‘ice’ and labored under this assumption until almost the day of trial,” Hardwicke said.
“Had my client been ultimately convicted of possessing such a large amount of ice, I’m certain Judge Wiseman would have imposed the harshest sentence available,” he went on to say.
The defendant’s sentence was “appropriate under the circumstances of this case and this way the CNMI will not have to bear the cost of housing Mr. Xiao for the next 25 or 30 years,” Hardwicke added.
Before sentencing Xiao, Wiseman asked the Legislature to revisit the laws on mandatory incarceration that “curb the discretion of prosecutors or judges over certain offense or types of offenders.”
Assistant Attorney General Russel Lorfing, the prosecutor, moved for the imposition of the 25-year mandatory jail sentence on Xiao.
Xiao was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine for “ice” trafficking and $5,000 for illegal possession of controlled substance.
He will serve a five-year prison term without parole or suspension.
The court, however, credited time served by Xiao since April 2010 at the Department of Corrections facility.
He is expected to be released from prison on April 7, 2015, at 4:49 p.m.
The court noted that Xiao did not have a prior criminal record.
