"There's nothing anyone here can do or say to get you below 10 years," U.S. District Judge Legrome Davis said, referring to the mandatory-minimum sentences for the drug offense and related gun charge.
For Cain, 34, the maximum-security prison in Lewisburg, 170 miles northwest of Philadelphia, is now his home. His wife, who was also his high-school sweetheart, says he spends his time working out, chatting up other cons about the stock market and reading tomes on self-motivation. He won't be released until December 2017.
To Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), an organization that advocates for fair-sentencing laws, Cain is also a "profile of injustice" and the victim of a misguided law passed in 1986 that created mandatory-minimum sentences for federal drug offenders.
In the 25 years since then, the law's been great for federal prosecutors, but not so great for judges and folks like Derrick Cain.
Federal prosecutors here admit privately that mandatory-minimum-sentencing laws can be "draconian," but they have also said that without such laws, it would probably be more difficult to encourage lower-level drug offenders to testify against kingpins and major traffickers.
And that, they say, has helped to remove at least some of the scourge of drugs and violence from communities.
But opponents say the laws usurp judicial power, lead to higher prison costs and are not applied evenly.
"I don't think [Derrick] deserves as much time as he got," said Lakeesha Cain, a pediatric nurse at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "He never had any problems with the law before, he had a job, the gun was legally registered and had been in our home for years."
