On 3rd cocaine conviction, Charlotte man gets 25 years prison. In SC, it’s the law.
A Charlotte man will spend 25 years in a South Carolina prison after being convicted Thursday in York County on a charge of less than half an ounce of cocaine.
The 25-year sentence for 34-year-old Aaron Montez Davis Jr., is due to it being his third drug trafficking conviction, according to prosecutors and court records. Davis, 34, was charged with having a little more than 13 grams of cocaine when arrested in 2017, prosecutors said.
The sentence for a third conviction of trafficking cocaine between 10 and 28 grams carries a mandatory 25 years under South Carolina law. The only wiggle room for a third trafficking conviction in South Carolina is the judge could sentence anywhere from 25 to 30 years.
Judge Derham Cole gave Davis the minimum 25 years — but made the 25 years consecutive to run after Davis finishes a stretch in federal prison for previous drug convictions, records show.
Davis is currently serving a 63-month stretch in federal prison after he was convicted at trial by U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors in Charlotte in 2019 of two drug trafficking offenses, federal court records show.
Davis will have to finish that federal prison term, then be sent to a South Carolina prison for 25 years, court records show.
Trial this week
A York County jury convicted Davis Thursday after a three-day trial in York County criminal court, records show.
Prosecutor Marina Hamilton of the 16th Circuit Solicitor’s Office said after the trial Davis was convicted of having about 13 grams of cocaine when charged by Fort Mill Police Department officers after a high speed chase in downtown Fort Mill in 2017. The chase reached speeds of 60 miles per hour, Hamilton said.
Because of the defendant’s rights, jurors were not told that Davis was in federal prison for other drug convictions during the trial in York County this week, Hamilton said.
Court records show that Davis was indicted and arrested by federal agents in 2018 for drug trafficking in Charlotte while free on bail from the 2017 arrest just south of the state line in South Carolina.
Hamilton said that she put on the record during the trial outside the presence of the jury that Davis had rejected a plea offer of six years prison after the arrest in late 2017. Hamilton said she put on record in court Davis then rejected a second plea offer of 15 years prison that was made after Davis was convicted in federal court in 2019.
Drug sentencing laws
Minimum sentences for drug crimes have been a source of contention for years in South Carolina and around the country. South Carolina legislators debated the issue in 2021 in the General Assembly, but the law was not changed, according to McClatchy’s The State newspaper.
South Carolina legislators also considered in that bill, which passed the House but not the Senate, a change that would increase the amount for trafficking cocaine to 28 grams, or an ounce, The State reported. The bill remains in the Senate.
Davis, the man convicted now in both federal and state courts, was represented this week at trial by the 16th Circuit Public Defender’s Office.
B.J Barrowclough, the top public defender for the 16th Circuit that includes York and Union counties, said mandatory minimum sentencing takes away the authority of judges who should be able to determine the appropriate sentence in any case.
“When charges carry mandatory minimums, it creates a myriad of unnecessary problems in a case,” Barrowclough said after the trial. “They do not allow for judges who are neutral and trained and have years of experience the full discretion to sentence. Instead it allows solicitors who are not neutral, and usually not as experienced in life or the criminal justice system, the power to dictate sentence.”
The mandatory minimums also make it more difficult for defendants to exercise their right to a trial — instead accepting pleas — when the potential penalty is so high for a conviction at trial, Barrowclough said.
“Minimums give the State too much power to use to leverage people out of exercising their rights,” Barrowclough said. “If the defendant doesn’t take exactly the sentence the solicitor wants and instead goes to trial and loses, then you get results like this; where we as a society will pay to warehouse this individual for a quarter century for possessing less than half an ounce of cocaine. Everybody loses.”
Federal sentencing minimums have come under scrutiny by the United States Sentencing Commission and others for decades. Federal sentencing has guidelines that judges can use but do not have to use.
This story was originally published March 11, 2022 at 3:04 PM with the headline "On 3rd cocaine conviction, Charlotte man gets 25 years prison. In SC, it’s the law.."
