THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Which might be fair if you murdered multiple people or plotted the destruction of the universe. But what if you were simple a go-between in a cocaine deal with no previous criminal record? Back in the crack cocaine happy days for drug enforcement, that coke deal would make you infinitely more evil than Dick Cheney himself.

Jones, who will turn 48 next week, is one of tens of thousands of inmates who received harsh mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses during the crack-cocaine epidemic, and whose cases are drawing new attention.

President Obama is visiting a federal prison in Oklahoma Thursday to promote his plan to overhaul the criminal justice system, saying Wednesday, “this huge spike in incarcerations is also driven by nonviolent drug offenses where the sentencing is completely out of proportion with the crime.”

Because of her role as a middle woman between a cocaine buyer and supplier, Jones was accused of being part of a “drug conspiracy” and should have known that the powder would be converted to crack — triggering a greater penalty.

Her sentence was then made even more severe with a punishment tool introduced at the height of the drug war that allowed judges in certain cases to “enhance” sentences — or make them longer.

Jones was hit with a barrage of “enhancements.”

Her license for a concealed weapon amounted to carrying a gun “in furtherance of a drug conspiracy.”

Enhancement.

When she was convicted on one count of seven, prosecutors said her testimony in her defense had been false and therefore an “obstruction of justice.”

Enhancement.

Although she was neither the supplier nor the buyer, prosecutors described her as a leader in a drug ring.

Enhancement.

By the end, Jones’s sentencing had so many that the federal judge had only one punishment option. With no possibility of parole in the federal system, she was, in effect, sentenced to die in prison.

Dreadful laws but not enough said about the ambitious DA's who piled on defendants who weren't in the position to fight back. DA's that went on to brag about "the dangerous drug kingpins" they sent away.