<human>: My cousin was vacationing in Florida where he was arrested for MDMA and LSD. I am not sure of the exact circumstances of his arrest but apparently he had a lot of drugs.  From my understanding he is most certainly looking at prision time.

Since I live in Florida (he wasn't visiting me this was just concidence) I have been acting as a kind of leasion between him and the rest of our family.  I went to visit him in jail this weekend as he is still in custody and will probably remain so until his trial. At our visit he informed me he fired his attorney because his attorney was trying to convince him to take a plea. He told me he planed to go to court and as his defense explain to the judge that prison is a really bad place and the judge himself wouldn't want to go there,  so its not good for the judge to send my cousin to prison. 
 
I immediately told him I thought this was a terrible idea,  that obviously the judge knows prison is bad, thats why hes going to to send you there.  My cousin told me that I dont understand and he was planning on getting people who have been to prison to testify to why prison is not the place to be.
I think the stress of the situation has gotten to him and he is not thinking clearly. I think if I can find some empirical evidence that this defense won't work he may listen.

My question is this. Is there any legal precedent for someone trying a defense like this,  also is there any legal rational for why a defense like this is doomed to fail?
If I can gather enough information I would like to share it with him as well as my aunt so she can convince him to try another route.  Thank you all very much for any information you can provide.

Can you condense the text into a few key points?
<bot>: My cousins defense for serious drug charges is that prison is bad, so he shouldn't be sent there. I need information on why this won't work to convince him otherwise.