Stash House Stings: A Nightmare of the War on Drugs

Stash house stings aren't just flawed operations; they're a stark example of everything wrong with the War on Drugs:

?I.????????????? Background on the Fictitious Stash House Operation.

Since the early 1990s, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has employed a controversial tactic known as "stash house stings." These operations, now recognized as deeply flawed, paint a stark picture of the War on Drugs' shortcomings.

The premise is deceptively simple: under the DOJ's direction, undercover informants lure individuals into participating in a fictional crime - robbing a non-existent stash house brimming with fabricated drugs and guarded by imaginary armed personnel. The DOJ orchestrates everything: the drugs, the "crew" needed for protection, and even the supposed location. When unsuspecting individuals arrive at the designated meeting point, law enforcement arrests them.

To recruit participants, informants engage in questionable practices that often target vulnerable populations. One informant, with a criminal record themselves, preyed upon an individual experiencing financial hardship and struggling to find stable employment. United States v. Mayfield, 771 F.3d 417, 441 (7th Cir. 2014). Another case involved an individual simply needing gas money and encountering a DOJ target who encouraged his participation. United States v. Conley, 2021 WL 825669, at *4 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 4, 2021).

Following arrests, the DOJ aggressively prosecutes these cases, wielding harsh mandatory minimum sentences. These sentences can include ten years for fabricated drug charges, five years for non-existent firearms (consecutive to the drug charges), and even life sentences with recidivist enhancements. This leaves judges with limited discretion, forcing them to impose draconian punishments on individuals who fell victim to a manipulative scheme. ??

Disproportionately, these individuals are Black and Brown men, further highlighting the racial undercurrents of the War on Drugs.

?II.??????????? A Broken System: The Devastating Impact of Stash House Stings on Individuals and Families

Nearly 1,500 individuals stand ensnared by a 25-year legacy of "stash house" stings - operations now known to be deeply flawed. Unofficially discontinued in 2016, these stings involved manipulated crimes, racial bias, and inflated drug quantities, leading to harsh sentences for fabricated situations.

Despite the Department of Justice acknowledging these wrongs through its Inspector General's report,[1] hundreds remain incarcerated. This silence perpetuates a grave injustice.

Thousands of lives, families, and futures have been impacted by a practice deemed deeply flawed. The government must act, ensuring:

Release and exoneration?for those wrongly convicted.

Justice?for the harmed.

? Comprehensive reforms?to prevent similar injustices.

Holding these individuals captive is a stain on our justice system. It's time to actively seek redemption through their release and overdue justice. Here’s why:

1. Fabricated Crimes, Fueled by War: In many cases, these stings didn't target existing criminals, they embody the War on Drugs' punitive approach, inventing crimes to fill prisons. Individuals, often vulnerable and innocent, become pawns in a twisted game, pushed to commit acts they never would have.[2]

2. Preying on the Vulnerable, not Vicious: Forget dangerous kingpins.[3] Stash house stings exploit the desperation of the marginalized: first-time offenders, the addicted, the poor.[4] This isn't justice; it's opportunistic cruelty,[5] disproportionately targeting minorities (a shocking 91%), highlighting the racist underbelly of the War on Drugs.[6]

3. Mandatory Minimums: A Double-Edged Sword of Manipulation: Stash house stings weaponize mandatory minimums, turning them into tools for excessive punishment, not justice.[7] Agents inflate drug quantities, triggering a 10-year sentence for fabricated 5 kilos of cocaine. But that's not all. They manipulate by encouraging targets to bring firearms, triggering another 5 or 10-year mandatory minimum, served consecutively, resulting in 15–20-year sentences for a non-existent crime. This is legalized extortion, built on lies and exploiting vulnerability.

4. Law Enforcement Out of Control: Stash house stings aren't just wrong; they're chilling examples of government overreach.[8] Agents manufacture crime, manipulate evidence, and exploit vulnerabilities. This isn't upholding the law; it's abusing power, creating a dystopian reality where entrapment reigns supreme.

5. No Apology, No Action: DOJ arrest and conviction records for the past 6 years create the appearance that the heyday of stash house operations has ended. This decline occurred after the groundbreaking racial discrimination suit in Chicago,[9] causing the release of 56 defendants and the public outcry of federal judges questioning the ethical boundaries of the operations. However,?stash house stings are still officially legal, no apology or remedy has been offered, and there has been no official decree by the DOJ to halt or end stash house sting tactics. The DOJ is free to conduct a stash house operation at any time, and there is a high probability stash house operations have been reimagined in similar ways to evade scrutiny. Meanwhile, hundreds languish in prison, their families shattered. This exposes the War on Drugs' indifference to the suffering it inflicts, leaving its victims to shoulder the burden of acknowledged injustice. This lack of accountability is deeply troubling, especially considering President Biden's pledge to advance racial equity[10] and address systemic injustices in the criminal justice system.[11] These promises ring hollow when victims of a demonstrably flawed and discriminatory practice are left behind, their suffering ignored.

6. Time for Reckoning: The release of 56 individuals resulting from selective enforcement litigation in Chicago and 7 more based on the practice's unofficial abandonment (63 in total) proves the injustice.[12] It sets a precedent for compassionate release or clemency for all similarly affected. This isn't charity; it's correcting a grave wrong.

?7. Dismantle the System, Not Lives: Stash house stings are a symptom of a broken system. We must confront the War on Drugs' failures: release the wrongly incarcerated, compensate the impacted, and reform a system that prioritizes punishment over justice.

?III.????????? Seeking Resolution for Individuals Impacted by Flawed "Stash House" Operations

The Department of Justice (DOJ) previously employed "stash house" sting operations, which created significant harm and raised ethical concerns. While these operations have been unofficially discontinued, hundreds of individuals remain impacted by their consequences.

Therefore, the DOJ must take decisive action to address this injustice:

1. Release and Exoneration: The DOJ should prioritize the immediate release and exoneration of individuals whose convictions stemmed solely from participation in demonstrably flawed "stash house" operations. This action is critical to rectify the wrongful convictions and restore lives unjustly disrupted.

2. Reparation and Support: The DOJ should establish a mechanism to provide meaningful reparation and support to individuals who were wrongly convicted or negatively impacted by these operations. This could include:

?·?????Compensation for lost wages and time incarcerated.

·????? Access to educational and reintegration programs.

·????? Mental health and community support services.

3. Comprehensive Reforms: To prevent similar injustices in the future, the DOJ should implement comprehensive reforms:

?·????? Formal ban on "stash house" stings:?The DOJ should enact a?formal policy prohibiting the use of such tactics?in future law enforcement operations.

·????? Review of mandatory minimums:?The DOJ should undertake a?thorough review of mandatory minimum sentencing policies, considering potential revisions to ensure they align with principles of proportionality and fairness.

·????? Addressing racial disparities:?The DOJ should implement?measures to address and dismantle systemic racial disparities?within the criminal justice system, including implicit bias training and data-driven analysis of sentencing practices.[13]

?By taking these steps, the DOJ can acknowledge its past mistakes, provide meaningful redress for those affected, and work towards building a more just and equitable criminal justice system.

Footnotes:

[1] ?A Review of the Department of Justice’s and ATF’s Implementation of Recommendations Contained in the OIG’s Report on Operations Fast and Furious and Wide Receiver, Oversight & Review Division, p. 8 (February 2016) (citing serious problems with oversight, targeting, and following procedure).

? [2] ?See Radley Balko, More Evidence that ATF Stings Were Aimed at the Weak, Mentally Challenged and Drug-Addicted, WASH. POST (Feb. 2, 2015) (describing stash house stings as “a program that opened an inviting door of crime to just anybody—and snared mainly low-level, black drug users who were mentally incapacitated, drug addicted, homeless or just too desperate for money to run away from a deal too good to be true.”).

? [3] ?Stash house stings were not limited to the “most violent offenders,” as ATF claims. Take Azeem Ahmad, a 19-year old who’d never been in trouble with the law, “had graduated high school, and was working six days a week, alternating between day shifts at the Enterprise car-rental office and night shifts at UPS,” when the ATF targeted him during Operation Gideon in Oakland. Akintunde Ahmad, The Bleak Truth Behind My “Inspiring’ Path From Oakland to Yale, The Atlantic (Sep. 12, 2019); see also United States v. Washington, No. 12-CR-632 (N.D. Ill.) (DC. No. 510-2) (providing criminal background statistics for a group of 94 defendants and concluding that, “[M]any of those who were recruited into criminal conspiracies that exposed them to lengthy terms of confinement under federal criminal law without having satisfied the government’s own objectives with respect to the most serious offenders in the community.”); Brad Heath, ATF uses fake drugs, big bucks to snare suspects, USA Today (Jan. 27, 2013) (“In the process, however, the agency also scooped up small-time drug dealers and even people with no records at all, including Army rangers.”); See United States v. Washington, 131 F. Supp. 3d 1007, 1018 (E.D. Cal. 2015) (“[T]he government is not preventing certain violence when it imagines a fictional scheme and recruits a person who then recruits others, including defendant?Washington, who otherwise might not have committed such a crime.”).

? [4] ?See United States v. Sellers, 906 F.3d 848, 858 (9th Cir. 2018) (Nguyen, J., concurring) (“In such cases, the government is creating hardened criminals out of individuals who might otherwise lead productive lives.”); Victoria Kim, Appellate Judges Question ATF’s Use Of Reverse Stings At Hearing, L.A. TIMES (Nov. 20, 2014) (quoting U.S. Circuit Judge William Fletcher) (concluding that ATF had been “encouraging people to commit crimes they otherwise would not commit.”); United States v. McKenzie, 656 F.3d 688, 692 (7 Cir. 2011) (“The crime proposed was, in the district judge’s words, ‘a massive’ one; it is somewhat baffling, then, that the young men whom the authorities recruited did not have ‘massive’ criminal histories to match.”); United States v. Washington, 869 F.3d 193, 225 (3rd Cir. 2017) (recognizing that stash house stings often times “create[] a criminal scheme that would not have otherwise existed”).

? [5] ?The setup and structure smacks of unfettered, arbitrary discretion. See United States v. Washington, 869 F.3d 193, 224 (3d Cir. 2017) (McKee, J., dissenting); United States v. Briggs, 623 F.3d 724, 729 (9th Cir. 2010) (“In fictional stash house operations like the one at issue here, the government has virtually unfettered ability to inflate the amount of drugs supposedly in the house and thereby obtain a greater sentence for the defendant. . . .The ease with which the government can manipulate these factors makes us wary of such operations . . .”); United States v. Flowers, 712 F. App’x 492, 511 (6th Cir. 2017) (“I find the concept of these ‘stash house sting’ operations at odds with the pride we take in presenting American criminal justice as a system that treats defendants fairly and equally under the law.”).

? [6] ?See Shayna Jacobs, 10 years. 179 arrests. No white defendants. DEA tactics face scrutiny in New York, Wash. Post (Dec. 14, 2019); Brad Heath, Investigation: ATF drug stings targeted minorities, USA Today (updated Apr. 24, 2019) (“At least 91% of the people agents have locked up using those stings were racial or ethnic minorities, USA TODAY found after reviewing court files and prison records from across the United States.”).

[7] ?As former Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner observed, “[Fictitious stash house] stings are a disreputable tactic. Law enforcement uses them to increase the amount of drugs that can be attributed to the persons stung, so as to jack up their sentences.” United States v. Kindle, 698 F.3d 401, 414 (7th Cir. 2012) (Posner, J., concurring and dissenting), opinion vacated on reh’g en banc sub nom. United States v. Mayfield, 771 F.3d 417 (7th Cir. 2014).

? [8] ?See United States v. Paxton, 2018 WL 4504160 (N.D. Ill. Sep. 20, 2018) (“Expressing this Court’s disgust with ATF’s conduct in this case.”) (Gettleman, J); United States v. Hudson, 3 F. Supp. 3d 772, (C.D. Cal. 2014) (Wright, J.) (“A reverse-sting like this one transcends the bounds of due process and makes the Government the oppressor of it’s people.”); United States v. Roberts, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 162656, *18 (C.D. Cal. May 30, 2014) (Real, J.) (“That the government targets minorities in poor neighborhoods with huge payouts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, then seeks life sentences for those that fall into its web, is so outrageous as to offend due process.”); United States v. Hardee, No. 1:12-CR-00734-JEI-2 (D.N.J. Jan. 8, 2015) (Irenas, J.) ( “If I went to a cocktail party and spoke to ten relatively intelligent people, not lawyers, just people out there, and explained to them the stash house sting, and then said the defendant was facing life imprisonment for agreeing to participate in a non-existent crime that could have never happened, all ten of them would think I’m crazy or that the law was crazy, or is–was it Dickens who said the law is an ass? If the law says that, the law is an ass.”).

? [9] ?See Alison Siegler, Guest Post Series on Chicago “stash-house sting” Litigation: Part 1 on “Sentencing Victories,” Sentencing Law and Policy (Oct. 16, 2018), available at https://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2018/10/guest-post-series-on-chicago-stash-house-sting-litigation-part-1-on-sentencing-victories.html .

? [10] ?President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, The White House (Jan. 20, 2021).

? [11] ??The Biden Administration pledged to establish a “more deliberate, systemic [clemency] process geared towards identifying entire classes of people who deserve mercy.” Kenneth P. Vogel & Annie Karni, Biden Is Developing a Pardon Process with a Focus on Racial Justice, N.Y. TIMES (May 17, 2021). Three years later, President Biden has yet to honor that commitment in a meaningful way. People convicted in connection with the DOJ's fictitious stash house robbery operation—overwhelming Black and Brown men—should be treated as one such class of people who richly deserves clemency. This would further two of President Biden’s stated goals: (1) addressing systemic issues in the criminal justice system; and (2) promoting racial justice.

? [12] ?United States v. Conley, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40763, 2021 WL 825669, at 5 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 4, 2021) (“Conley serving the remainder of his fifteen-year federal sentence will do little to generally deter criminal conduct because the government no longer engages in the "tawdry" and "disreputable" practice of false?stash house?prosecutions—due to public outrage and judicial criticism. It is only reasonable to conclude that the public is not served by Conley's continued incarceration based on a disavowed practice.”); United States v. White, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 146891, 2 (granting White’s motion for compassionate release, mentioning that “ATF has now abandoned these types of operations.”);United States v. Logan, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 58636, 9-10 (ND Ill. Apr. 4, 2023) (“The Court finds that Logan's continued incarceration for crimes that the government later deliberately ceased to prosecute in circumstances that are not materially distinguishable, and the "investigation" of which it has abandoned on a going-forward basis,?constitutes on its own an extraordinary and compelling reason…”); United States v. Ward, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 137575, 7 (ND Ill. Jun. 22, 2023) (granting Ward’s motion for compassionate release and finding “that continued imprisonment based on now disavowed?stash house?stings constituted on its own an extraordinary and compelling reason….”); United States v. Spagnola, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 137545, *9 (ND Ill. Jun. 22, 2023) (“This Court agrees with Judge Kennelly that continued incarceration for crimes the government no longer prosecutes or investigates constitutes an extraordinary and compelling reason to grant compassionate release under the statute.”); see also Office of the Pardon Attorney, U.S. DOJ, Commutations Granted by President Barack H. Obama (2009-2017) (citing the release of Joshua Boyer and Theartis Daniels who were both granted clemency after the government ceased conducting stash house stings following high profile selective enforcement litigation that took place in Chicago).

[13] ?See President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, The White House (Jan. 20, 2021); Kenneth P. Vogel & Annie Karni, Biden Is Developing a Pardon Process with a Focus on Racial Justice, N.Y. TIMES (May 17, 2021).