Native American man serving 'de facto life sentence' for drug dealing. 'Why must I die in prison?'

In 2000, at the age of 27, Hidalgo was sentenced to 60 to 150 years in prison after being convicted of charges related to running a heroin drug ring.

"This is probably the most extreme sentence I've ever seen in Pennsylvania for a drug case," said Maria Goellner, state policy director for the criminal justice reform group Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

She reviewed Hidalgo's case at USA TODAY's request.

Central Pennsylvania's deeply red Blair County, where Hidalgo was sentenced, has a reputation among state officials and criminal justice reform advocates of imposing disproportionately long sentences on Black and brown people for drug crimes. In Hidalgo's case, the judge exceeded the prosecutor’s request and ordered Hidalgo to serve his sentences consecutively.

"Back then, the Blair County judges seemed to be in a contest to see who could give the longest terms on drug cases," said David Kaltenbaugh, an attorney handling Hidalgo's appeal.

Yes, I've got to be held accountable for my actions," Hidalgo said in an interview from a Pennsylvania prison near Albion, in the northwestern corner of the state.

By prosecuting him, he says, Pennsylvania broke promises made roughly 230 years ago in treaties between the United States and the Iroquois Confederacy, which includes Hidalgo's Mohawk tribe.

In court, Callan said a lengthier sentence was necessary because of the "infectious nature of the poison" Hidalgo brought into the community.

"We can only imagine," he said, how much harm resulted from addicts trying to get money to buy Hidalgo's drugs.

In another case around the same time, an appeals court said Callan had abused his sentencing discretion by focusing on the seriousness of a defendant's crime without considering factors such as his character and minimal criminal record.

Callan lost reelection about a year after he sentenced Hidalgo to prison. In a local newspaper ad, a group opposing Callan said he was "too wrong for too long" and cited examples in which they said he had ruled crucial evidence was inadmissible or threw out a jury's verdict. .

"I have no regrets and I don't think he deserves any slack," said Callan, now in private practice.

Black people in Blair County sentenced for the same drug trafficking crime were roughly 18 times more likely to be sent to state prison, where longer sentences are typically served, than white people, according to a USA TODAY analysis of 2018 data from the state's sentencing commission.

"I don’t think it’s wrong to be happy a drug dealer goes to jail, but it should strike some chords when all of them aren’t sentenced the same," said Andrae Holsey, president of the Blair County branch of the NAACP.

The state has the third-largest population of people serving de facto life sentences of 50 years or more, according to a 2021 report by The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based criminal justice reform advocacy group.

Weeks wrote in a letter to USA TODAY that his office aggressively prosecutes drug crimes, but he disagrees "with any claim that Blair County disproportionately sentences people of color to longer sentences for drug crimes.".

Weeks, who became district attorney in April 2020, said he prefers that first-time drug trafficking offenders are sentenced to rehabilitation, not prison, if there are no aggravating factors. .

Hidalgo, like most people in prison, doesn't have a constituency," especially in a state with no Native lands

All are "opposed to any type of clemency," Feathers wrote. Their reasons include the "devastating impact" Hidalgo's drug ring had on the community, the "many drug deaths and ruined lives" directly attributed to his network, Hidalgo's "threats of violence during his reign as a drug kingpin," his lack of remorse and cooperation, and use of juveniles for drug transactions

Last week the Board of Pardons heard a clemency petition from one of Hidalgo's codefendants, who was sentenced to 39 to 78 years in prison

Another codefendant is serving a sentence of 18 to 62 years at the same prison as Hidalgo

He said he can't comment on Hidalgo's petition, but he said Pennsylvanians should ask themselves whether the state's prisons should become geriatric facilities

Hope, Hidalgo's mother, said he has "missed out on so, so much," including his sister's wedding and the death of his stepdad. "I'd like my son to come home