Blind justice: Less so for attorneys?

Turns out they might be right.

The average jail time for people convicted of similar charges is 4.4 years, according to an analysis of state sentencing averages.

And Roberts is not the only convicted court officer who appears to have gotten off easy, legal scholars say.

Horry County Magistrate Archie Lee got 500 hours community service in state court for sex charges; others convicted of similar charges average 5.1 years in jail.

Marion lawyer Thomas M. Richardson Jr. got community service for sex charges; others with similar convictions average 1.9 years.

In cases across the country, critics have accused the legal system of giving special treatment to convicted lawyers and judges. Others, though, point to prosecutions that have landed crooked court officials in jail for years.

But no one has ever done a scientific study of the issue, according to national experts in sentencing.

``It's a matter of considerable interest in the legal profession,'' says Dan Freed, director of Yale Law School's Clinical Sentencing Program. ``Somebody really should examine this. In fact, I think I'm going to start a file on it.''

Part of the problem is that neither the Bureau of Justice Statistics nor the U.S. Sentencing Commission keeps track of felons' occupations, so the data would be difficult to collect.

To the extent that favoritism does exist in the legal system, some legal scholars say it's probably more widespread on the local level, where judges and lawyers not only work cases together, but often know each other socially: the so-called old-boys network. Federal sentencing guidelines are fairly strict, making it difficult for judges in federal court to let someone off with an unusually light sentence.

``Well-connected local people probably don't get prosecuted as much,'' said professor John Corkery of the James Madison Law School in Chicago. ``That's just endemic in government, including lawyers and judges. People don't like to prosecute their friends.''

Because of the lack of research, the evidence of apparent favoritism is mostly anecdotal.

Take the case of former Horry County Magistrate Archie Lee. Lee pleaded no contest in 1993 to charges of molesting 15 women and faced a maximum sentence of 35 years in prison. But after Circuit Judge Edward Cottingham sentenced Lee to 500 hours of community service, victims were so enraged they organized a petition drive to keep Cottingham from getting reappointed.

Cottingham said he didn't send Lee to prison because Lee was 67 and a broken man, and he thought Lee's life would be at risk in jail. Cottingham got reappointed, but 45 legislators voted against him even though he was unopposed. And after the National Organization for Women chimed in, the FBI launched a federal civil rights investigation that resulted in a year of federal prison, which Lee started serving this year.

Women's rights advocates were similarly outraged by the sentence given on Monday to Roberts, who admitted he coerced a woman into oral sex in a courthouse office in exchange for dropping a drunken-driving charge, and tried to do the same with another. In coercing the woman into sex, Roberts told the women she would lose custody of her child if convicted, according to court testimony.

Roberts faced up to 40 years in prison on the charges of bribery and three counts of criminal sexual conduct, though two of those charges were dropped as part of the plea bargain between prosecutor Robert Bolchoz and Roberts' attorney James Anders.

Roberts still could have gotten up to 20 years -- instead, he's in jail for 90 nights and can leave during the daytime to work.

In addition to the sentence, what infuriated women's rights advocates was that, as part of the plea agreement, the attorney general's office agreed to not pursue any other charges against Roberts, even though Bolchoz said there were potentially five similar cases.

``I just can't help but thinking that if it was Joe Regular who did it and not somebody in a position of power, it would have been treated differently,'' said Susan Higginbotham, a board member of the National Coalition Against Sexual Assault and director of the S.C. branch.

Bolchoz, who requested ``substantial'' jail time, thought the sentence was too weak, but Anders said he thought it was fair. The woman in the bribery case declined to comment after the sentence.

The judge, Victor Rawl of Charleston, said Saturday, ``I'm not going to justify my sentence, but quite frankly it was my call.''

Rawl noted that he considered the effect on Roberts' family and that Roberts had lost his law license and probably won't get it back, Rawl said. He also said he weighed the usefulness to the community and the prison system of putting Roberts in jail. He pointed out that Roberts faces five years in jail if he fails to register annually as a sex offender, and 10 years imprisonment if he violates his three years of probation.

``The 90 nights in some respects is the least portion of the sentence, not the heaviest portion of the sentence,'' Rawl said.

Another case that raised some eyebrows was that of lawyer Thomas Richardson Jr., who admitted to exposing himself in a Wal-Mart store in 1995, and grabbing a 13-year-old girl's buttocks and making a sexual remark to her in the same store in 1994.Facing up to 13 years on charges of indecent exposure and assault and battery, he pleaded guilty and got five years probation.

At the same time, other convicted lawyers and judges have gotten tougher sentences, such as former York County judge Sam Mendenhall. He got 1 1/2 years in state prison in 1994 for trading sex for favorable rulings in a woman's divorce and child-custody case.

``I think you are going to find that there are slippages and impurities and failings throughout our society,'' said USC law professor John Freeman. ``Sometimes lawyers are the beneficiaries, sometimes bank presidents. I don't doubt that there are imperfections and I don't doubt that there are favors people get. But I don't think all lawyers are getting special treatment.''

Nevertheless, critics say no lawyers should get special treatment.

``If anything, they should get equal if not more punishment than what the average person gets,'' said Rep. Gary Simrill, R-Rock Hill, a member of the Judiciary Committee, who thought Roberts' sentence was too light.

Otherwise, he said, the public will distrust of justice system even more.

The S.C. Attorney General's Office, which prosecuted Roberts, has taken a public stand against lawyer wrongdoing. In recent years the office has prosecuted nearly two dozen attorneys on tax evasion charges. They received sentences ranging from probation to one year in prison.

``I'm always distressed when lawyers commit breaches of public trust,'' Attorney General Charlie Condon said earlier this year. ``Their misconduct not only puts the profession in a bad light, but also erodes the public's confidence in the justice system.''

The U.S. Justice Department and state attorney generals have made a point of targeting lawyers for white-collar crimes. Along with the rigid federal sentencing guidelines, the scope and publicity of such crackdowns help extinguish the possibility of favoritism, legal scholars say.

But most states -- including South Carolina -- do not have such ``structuring sentencing'' guidelines. As a result, Judge Rawl, for example, could have sentenced Roberts to anywhere between zero and 20 years in jail.

North Carolina, though, is one of the few states that has structured sentencing in state courts, which it implemented five years ago. This system restricts the range of jail time judges can give defendants.

Had Roberts been prosecuted under N.C. guidelines, he could not have been sentenced to less than 30 months.

South Carolina's legislature is currently considering a structured sentencing proposal, but the plan's guidelines would only be advisory and judges would retain as much leeway as they have now. Simrill would like firmer guidelines, similar to North Carolina's.

``They're a step in the right direction, but I think they need to be more punitive,'' Simrill said. ``But at least it's a start.''

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