The first verdict rendered under the new Penal Code was handed down yesterday: guilty. This occurred just three months after the initial arrest, something unusually swift for the Dominican penal system. The judge of the Third Penal Chamber of the Court of the Province of Santo Domingo sentenced Juan Hierro to five years in prison and fined him RD$50,000 for his violation of Law 50-88 that deals with Drugs and Controlled Substances. Prosecutors Franklin Rodriguez and Julio Cesar de los Santos pled the case for the state. Hierro was apprehended as he tried to leave the country with 19 bags of heroine in his stomach. In contrast to the usual two or three years of processing under the former penal code, this case was concluded in just two and a half months. The provincial prosecutor, Perfecto Acosta, praised the new code for the ease with which trials may proceed through the courts.