A former Weber County attorney, who prosecuted some half-dozen capital homicide cases and was gung-ho on throwing drug dealers behind bars, now says that the death penalty should be eliminated and that drugs should be legalized.
Don Hughes, a Republican who served as county attorney from 1982 to 1986 when he was defeated by Democrat Reed Richards, said that street drugs should be taken out of the hands of the criminals and law enforcement agencies, and into the hands of the medical profession in an attempt to control drug abuse."I don't think the police will ever solve the drug problem," said Hughes, who is now in private practice in Ogden.
Hughes said drug use is so ingrained in American society that drugs are here to stay. He compared drug use to Prohibition and pointed out that once drinking became legal, alcohol was taken out of the hands of criminals, like Al Capone, and into the hands of responsible businessmen, like Joseph Coors.
The former prosecutor said he used to be "gung-ho" in sending drug dealers to prison but that he has since changed his mind and is now defending drug dealers in court and trying to keep them out of prison.
He said crime would go down if drugs were legalized.
He pointed out that 50 percent of all property crimes in Weber County are related to drug and alcohol abuse and that more and more dangerous people are selling drugs because money is to be made.
"We're making drug dealers more and more ruthless," he said, "because they're going to do more and more things to stay out of prison. And the more ruthless you are, the more dangerous you are. If we legalized drugs, we would get those kind of people off the street."
Hughes said the solution to the drug problem is to control drugs by turning them over to the medical profession. He pointed out that drug addicts will always be around, as will people who take drugs socially.
"It would at least save some of the suffering of the addicts if drugs were legalized," he said.
And capital punishment? Hughes admits that as a prosecutor, his heart wasn't in the right place when it came to the penalty phase for a person convicted of first-degree murder.
Hughes said that he prosecuted about six capital murder cases when he was county attorney and that all the defendants got life sentences. He said the death penalty should be eliminated and life in prison without parole would be a good alternative.
"Capital punishment is not a deterrence," he said. "It is for pure honest vengeance."
If the death penalty was carried out quickly, then Hughes said he would probably support the punishment. But he said years of appeals change people.
He said William Andrews should not be executed because the Ogden Hi Fi murder defendant is a changed man.