Ronald Cummings, the father of Haleigh Cummings who disappeared from her home in 2009 at age 5, has been released from prison. He had been serving a fifteen-year sentence for drug trafficking. His now ex-wife, Misty, who was watching Haleigh on the night she disappeared (Ron was at work) is serving 25 years for the same offense.
I had always thought that those drug sentences were very severe, and wonder if they were mandated sentences left over from the “get tough on drugs” years in the 90s. I mean, 15 years, 25 years for selling some pills on the street? You can get less time than that, sometimes, for MURDER.
There had been hope that the drug defendants would try to cut their sentences down by offering information on Haleigh. But this never materialized.
With Misty, anyway, there’s a sense that she was sentenced for the wrong crime: if she didn’t outright cause Haleigh’s disappearance, she knows what happened and isn’t saying. But that’s not how things are supposed to work in this country. You’re supposed to be sentenced for the crime you were found guilty of, and ONLY that crime.
In any case, Ron’s release got Haleigh’s name back in the news where it hadn’t been in quite awhile. Maybe something will come of that. I’ve blogged about Haleigh numerous times, but the last time was over ten years ago.
There’s a four-episode podcast about Haleigh, by the way. I haven’t listened to it so can’t comment on the quality.
The Charley Project Blog 
It depends on who they sell them to , they could have overdosed an old person or sold drugs in a school zone , or if they’ve been convicted for selling in the past , there’s always different charges for different things I guess .
I actually disagree with your assessment on the drug charges. I think that charges for possession are in many cases are too high , punishing people for addiction and encouraging longer periods of use rather than assisting in recovery. However dealing and selling drugs should carry serious prison time. The sale of narcotics is a crime that has a whole host of victims. It’s not just the addict who is slowly being hurt and having their quality of life ruined by their addiction. It’s also their family members – children and parents and siblings and partners and friends , who have to watch that family member be slowly hurt by their addiction as well. And that isn’t including outsiders who may be hurt due to addiction as it is common for crime , particularly property crime to rise in areas with high rates of addiction (many , many people don’t commit crime as a part of their journey with addiction but there is a link there) as people have to spend more and more money to fuel their addiction. It’s not just selling some pills , it has the power to negatively impact generations of families and populations and thus it should be treated as such.
I hope you don’t take this as me in any way discounting the amazing work that you do with the Charley project this is just something we disagree on.
If we’re going to go after people for drugs I think we should go after the kingpins, not the street level sellers.
This is kind of like how people get all mad at people in third world countries who poach endangered species, and talk about wanting to severely punish or even kill them. When the real problem isn’t the impoverished African person who poaches a rhino so he can maybe send his kids to school, but rather the wealthy businessman in an air-conditioned office far away from the African savannah who pays poachers $1000 a gram for pills made of rhino horn.