Agency refuses to tend convict

Tennessee out, so resentencing is set

— A Helena-West Helena man, sentenced Wednesday to “time served” instead of a prison sentence after a federal judge learned that he was relieved to be arrested and freed from his life of drug trafficking, will be resentenced next week.

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In a brief order filed Friday, U.S. District Judge James Moody said that an eight month electronic monitoring condition he had imposed on Donnie Mitchell’s three-year probationary sentence was rejected by the U.S. Probation Office in the Middle District of Tennessee.

Because the electronic monitoring condition required Mitchell to live with his sister in Nashville for eight months, his supervision would have been transferred to the Tennessee office from the Eastern District of Arkansas.

It is a common practice for federal probationers to be transferred to the supervision of another federal court district to accommodate special circumstances.

Because Mitchell’s sentence was conditioned upon agreement by the Tennessee probation office to supervise him, the rejection automatically vacated the sentence. Moody has scheduled a resentencing hearing for 11:30 a.m. Friday.

Attorneys couldn’t be reached Friday afternoon to explain why the Tennessee office turned down the transfer request or what alternatives might be proposed at the resentencing. The attorneys had a brief telephone conference with the judge earlier in the day.

Mitchell was known as “the mechanic” in a Helena-West Helena auto shop that served as a front for a large drug-trafficking ring that was targeted by the “Operation Delta Blues” investigation that led to the federal indictment of 70 people, including five law-enforcement officers, in Little Rock on Oct. 4, 2011. The indictments were sealed until Oct. 11, 2011, when hundreds of law enforcement officers rounded up the suspects in pre-dawn raids in eastern Arkansas.

On Wednesday, defense attorney Jim Wyatt of Little Rock said that before Mitchell’s arrest, he was trapped in a life of drug dealing and “constant chaos.” Wyatt noted that Mitchell was so relieved to be free of the turmoil that he fell asleep on a bus taking the suspects to jail.

Mitchell, 50, later pleaded guilty to being a part of the drug operation that channeled hundreds of pounds of marijuana and cocaine into the Delta in 2010 and 2011. He had already served more than 16 months in jail when he was sentenced.

Federal sentencing guidelines recommended a sentence of two years to 2 1/2 years in prison, but with the time he had already served in jail awaiting trial and sentencing, Mitchell would have been immediately eligible to serve the rest of his sentence in a halfway house.

Arkansas, Pages 11 on 03/02/2013

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