A mother reacted with dismay Tuesday after a Douglas County judge sentenced her son to 11 1/2 years in prison for third-time cocaine possession.

“They could have been lenient and given him a chance,” said Helen Manning-Coleman, mother of drug defendant Dezerro D. Smith, 33, Kansas City, Kan. “He just needs to get back on the right track, that’s all.”

Last year the Legislature passed a new law that required drug treatment and probation instead of prison for nonviolent drug offenders sentenced after Nov. 1. But District Court Judge Jack Murphy ruled that the new law didn’t apply to Smith’s case because he was charged before the law went into effect July 1.

Murphy then handed down the penalty prescribed under the old version of state sentencing guidelines: 138 months in prison. Murphy could have lightened the penalty if he’d found there were “substantial and compelling reasons,” but he said he didn’t see any.

Defense attorney Jessica Kunen argued there were such reasons, including the new law, the small amount of cocaine involved, and the fact that Smith’s only noncocaine offense was a driving under the influence charge.

Kunen said her client had never had access to drug treatment, but prosecutor Dan Dunbar disputed that. He said records showed Smith completed two treatment programs while in prison on previous cocaine charges and failed to finish a third program.

Dunbar argued against lessening the sentence for Smith, saying that lawmakers mainly were concerned about saving prison-bed space and weren’t trying to send a message that drug use was any less severe a crime.

The time Smith now faces is double and triple what some violent offenders in Douglas County receive.

For example, the man convicted of injuring 18 people in a shooting Oct. 5 outside a downtown nightclub is serving about 3 years in prison. A man convicted in the shooting death last March of Lawrence resident Quincy M. Sanders is serving about 5 years.

Judge opts for lighter drug case sentence (1-10-04 Mushrooms v. murder: Sentences in Kansas don’t all fit the crime (11-30-03)

According to the Kansas Sentencing Commission, it costs taxpayers about $20,000 to incarcerate someone for one year.

Helen Manning-Coleman reacts after hearing District Court Judge Jack Murphy sentence her son to 11 1/2 years in prison. Dezerro D. Smith, 33, was sentenced for a third cocaine possession Tuesday at the Douglas County Courthouse.