Pubdate: Sat, 23 Dec 2000
Source: Evansville Courier & Press (IN)
Copyright: 2000 The Evansville Courier
Contact:  P. O. Box 268 Evansville, IN 47702-0268
Fax: 812-464-7435
Website: http://courier.evansville.net/
Author: Sonya Ross, Associated Press writer

COMMUTATIONS SHOW SENTENCING DISPARITY

WASHINGTON - In the time it takes to earn a bachelor's degree, Kemba Smith 
went from college student to battered woman on the lam with a drug-dealing man.

She loved and feared her boyfriend, Peter Hall, too much to help the FBI 
capture him. Hall eventually was killed. Smith got 25 years in prison for 
drug crimes about which she and her supporters contend she knew very little.

President Clinton set her free Friday, along with Dorothy Gaines, whose 
19-year sentence also underscored disparities in federally mandated 
punishments for bit players in the war on drugs.

Gaines, 42, of Mobile, Ala., and Smith, 29, of Richmond, Va., were among 
three prisoners whose sentences were commuted by Clinton on Friday. Gaines 
served seven years. Smith served six, and gave birth while in prison to her 
son Armani, now 6. He is being raised by her parents, Gus and Odessa Smith.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which took on Smith's case in 
1996, said it was a dramatic example of the need to eliminate mandatory 
minimum sentences established by Congress in the 1980s to take down drug 
kingpins.

The problem, fund director Elaine Jones said, is that the kingpins are able 
to cooperate with authorities and barter their freedom, while lower-level 
players lack enough information to do that and typically end up in prison.

Those offenders, Jones said, often are young, black or Latino, poor and 
before the judge on a first-time offense.

"President Clinton has acted correctly," Jones said. "We hope Congress will 
move forward to reform these overly harsh sentencing policies."

Smith and Gaines contend they never actually handled the crack cocaine that 
put them behind bars.

Smith's role in the drug ring involved renting a storage space here, a car 
or apartment there. In court papers, she said she got involved in Hall's 
crack cocaine ring to keep him from beating her.
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