Pubdate: Fri, 05 Jan 2001 Source: Bergen Record (NJ) Copyright: 2001 Bergen Record Corp. Contact: 150 River St., Hackensack, NJ 07601 Fax: (201) 646-4749 Feedback: http://www.bergen.com/cgi-bin/feedback Website: http://www.bergen.com/ Author: Randy Barnett and Morgan Reynolds Note: Randy E. Barnett is the Austin B. Fletcher professor at Boston University School of Law and was a criminal prosecutor from 1977 to 1981. Morgan Reynolds is a professor of economics at Texas A&M University and the director of the Criminal Justice Center for the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas. WELL-DESERVED COMMUTATION OF SENTENCES IT IS NOT OFTEN that we find ourselves agreeing with President Clinton, but after last week's sentence commutations of Kemba Smith and Dorothy Gaines, two drug prisoners, we found ourselves shaking our heads in agreement. As a matter of policy Clinton does not comment on such commutations, but in his recent interview in Rolling Stone magazine he characterized America's imprisonment policies as counterproductive and observed that, "I ran out of time before I could do ... a re-examination of our entire policy on imprisonment." Our message to him is that he still has time to provoke the kind of re-examination he seeks by further exercising his pardon power and granting executive clemency to many more of the low-level, non-violent drug offenders who are serving lengthy terms of incarceration. The Constitution gives the president extraordinary power to curb excessive punishment. Clemency provides him the means to address, in a small but significant way, his belief that mandatory sentencing policies should be re-examined to prevent low-level offenders from serving terms grossly out of proportion to their conduct. By his act, he would rectify this disproportionate punishment, reunite many parents with their children, and provoke a much-needed national debate about how drug users should be treated by the law. Since 1987, when mandatory drug sentencing laws went into effect, federal judges have had to impose severe penalties for drug possession and distribution. Because the sentences are based primarily on the type and weight of the drug, judges cannot consider factors traditionally taken into account when sentencing each defendant. This year, more than 1,000 prisoners have petitioned the president for sentence commutations. Many are young, non-violent drug offenders like the two he freed last week, whose sentences are wildly disproportionate to their roles in the drug trade. Their continued incarceration serves little social purpose. They include Derrick Curry, at one time a promising high school basketball player with a college sports scholarship, who was arrested while serving as a drug mule and charged with conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine. For his minor role, he received a sentence of 19 years - -- a period of time equal to his age when he was arrested. When arrested, Mr. Curry had $150 in a savings account and had to borrow his mother's 1981 Chevy Citation and even the gas money to drive it around. At sentencing his judge stated that "if I were sentencing in a situation other than a guideline, I would not impose the sentence that I am going to impose." Mr. Curry has spent seven years in prison. Some prisoners' mandatory sentences are compounded by procedural obstacles to a fair sentence. Gerard Greenfield, whose petition for commutation of sentence awaits the president's decision, has served seven and a half years for his role on one occasion as a drug courier. Greenfield's first attorney died of a drug overdose. His second refused to allow Greenfield to continue plea negotiations, appeared late to court, and put his client on the stand without prior warning. The judge in Greenfield's trial was so disturbed that he submitted an affidavit to the Court of Appeals delineating counsel's failures. Soon thereafter, the attorney was disbarred. Greenfield got 16 years because the judge was forced to impose a draconian mandatory sentence. The judge has written to the president supporting Greenfield's petition for commutation. Derrick Curry, Gerard Greenfield, Kemba Smith, and Dorothy Gaines are only a handful of the many prisoners serving sentences that, while legally unassailable, are nothing less than miscarriages of justice. Other examples include the entire class of prisoners who were unlucky enough to have committed their offenses before 1994. That was the year legislation was enacted to allow judges to sentence below the mandatory minimum sentence if the defendant met strict congressional criteria: first-time, non-violent drug offenders who were neither leaders nor organizers, did not use firearms, and who provided the government with all the information about their cases. There are 487 of these stranded prisoners taking up valuable prison space while serving unconscionably long sentences that similar defendants today would not receive. President Clinton has pledged to consider all of the commutation petitions awaiting decision before he leaves office. He should do justice by granting clemency to many of the low-level non-violent drug offenders now warehoused in federal prisons across the country. In dispensing mercy in this fashion, he will be remembered for sending a powerful message to lawmakers about the shortcomings of America's imprisonment policies while reassuring the public that the legal system is capable of just and moral results. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake