Read this--it would be difficult to condense it all into a few sentences or paragraphs with the time I have available to me right now.

A combination of the requirements of Federal sentencing guidelines, a lawyer who doesn’t seem to have done everything that I could have for his client, a judge who was unaware of a sentencing rule that would have allowed a lighter sentence, and a very bad decision on his own part conspired to deliver something other than justice to Sgt. Patrick Lett. While it’s impossible to avoid the fact that his legal problems are of his own design--delivering crack cocaine for his cousin in exchange for car repairs--it’s also impossible for me to avoid the conclusion that our justice system is letting him down.

Some of the guilty people who go before the courts deserve a little bit of mercy along with their punishment. Given his spotless previous record, his service to the country, the kind of people who came to speak on his behalf, and the judge’s own expressed desire to be able to give him a lesser sentence, it seems obvious that Lett is one of the people who deserves a second chance. Instead, he’s been lashed around by the courts, has probably ruined his career, and may well lose years of his life to prison--a fate I don’t believe he deserves.

Here’s hoping the Supreme Court sees fit to give Sgt. Lett a second chance; that would be justice for a man who served his country well, who admitted his error, and who had no history of legal transgressions.