Alabama judge’s son gets special treatment for felony drug bust
Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 1:48 pm | By: Radical Russ
This reporting courtesy of Loretta Nall with Alabamians for Compassionate Care. You can follow this story ate her blog, NallForGovernor.blogspot.com.
On March 3, 2008 John Alexander Rochester, son of 40th Circuit Court Judge John Rochester, was arrested at the Ashland City Park in Ashland, AL for possession of meth, first degree possession of marijuana, trafficking cocaine, possession of paraphernalia, distribution of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance.
Judge Rochester is legendary for harshly sentencing drug offenders who are unfortunate enough to find themselves in his courtroom. And Judge Rochester always drug tests defendants before the trial. Lines them up like cattle and demands their bodily fluids in hopes of bypassing that pesky thing known as a trial by jury.
Judge Rochester doesn’t believe in drug treatment before prison. In fact, one of his favorite sayings is, “There’s a SAP program in prison” whenever a lawyer asks that their client be allowed to attend treatment. SAP stands for substance abuse program.
John Alexander Rochester spent 20 days in the Ashland jail and was then bonded out by his mother for a total of $20,000 and whisked away to treatment in Mississippi to await the next convening of the grand jury in Clay County.
The judge who set the bonds is Judge George C. Simpson, the district court Judge in Clay County, which means he is subordinate to Judge Rochester and good friends with him to boot. …In at least two cases John Alexander Rochester’s bond was half (or less) what other people charged with the same crime had to pay.
Additionally, John Alexander Rochester should have enhancements added to his sentence because he was selling drugs at the city park… The only catch is that the prosecutor has to ask that these additional penalties be imposed.
And the reason I have to post edited portions of an email sent to me by Loretta, rather than linking and pasting from an Alabama media story on John Alexander Rochester, is because the media in Alabama have all but been silent on the story of a prominent judge’s son being busted near children in a park on multiple felony charges involving trafficking and three different drugs.
Topics: Alabama, John Alexander Rochester, Judge John Rochester, Loretta Nall
You’d be hard pressed to find some on that hasn’t heard the expression “Justice is Dead” but the more important thing these days is that the Media is Dead. A lack of reporting the truth is what really guides this world down its dark path.
Sad to say, American justice is a system that befits a third-world country.
The Founding Fathers really screwed up when they decided to elect judges and prosecutors.
Bad, bad idea!
Meritocracy is a far better system, although to be perfectly clear, no system is completely immune to corruption of the sort we are seeing in this case.
And obviously, the Alabama media are either corrupt or intimidated or both.
Now we know why why Judge Rochester was so harsh to drug offenders. He couldn’t control his own son so he feels he needs to punish others for his own inadequacies.
I generally have very very liberal views on drug law, right up the point where kids are involved. Even if he wasnt selling to kids, hes a freaking moron for have that quantity in a school zone.