Judge Namby-Pamby Frees Machine-Gun Mama

(Baltimore, Maryland)

Maryland U.S. District judge Richard Bennett on Aug. 27 gave a 32-year-old suburban Baltimore mother, who pleaded guilty to machine-gun possession, a chance to rehabilitate her drug-addled life without going to federal prison.

Bennett sentenced Jennifer Dubois Dickerson to the three months she’d already spent incarcerated on charges stemming from her sale, for $1,350, of an AK-style machine gun to an undercover agent of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) last November.

The maximum sentence faced by Dickerson was 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Bennett did not impose a fine, but put her on three years of probation, the first five months of which will be spent on home detention at Dickerson’s mother’s house in Bethany Beach, Del., where, the judge disclosed, he owns a second home.

The judge cited Dickerson’s drug-addiction problems and family situation in justifying the light sentence despite her two prior pot convictions. Though evidence in the case shows she sold a machine gun, Bennett stated that Dickerson “is not a machine-gun dealer,” adding that “the simple fact of the matter” is that she was “dragged into this by a husband that subsequently left her and her child.”

“I have looked very carefully at this case,” Bennett said to Dickerson, noting that he has a “second home within walking distance of your mother’s place” in Bethany Beach. “I was there just yesterday,” Bennett added, pointing out the irony of Dickerson’s “pain and heartache” amidst the resort community’s beachside beauty.

It's not known whether Judge Bennett could have been more lenient in sentencing Dickerson.