Pubdate: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 Source: Washington Post (DC) Copyright: 2001 The Washington Post Company Contact: 1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071 Feedback: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Author: Valerie Strauss, Washington Post Staff Writer Note: Staff writer Martin Weil contributed to this report. NAVY ANALYST MORISON RECEIVES A PARDON Three area residents -- the first person ever convicted of leaking classified government information to the news media and two men who received controversial drug sentences -- were among the 176 people who received presidential pardons or commutations yesterday in one of President Clinton's final acts in office. Each of the cases -- the earliest of which occurred in 1985 -- provoked debate at the time of trial over the fairness of the prosecution and sentencing. The three are: - - Samuel Loring Morison, a former Navy intelligence analyst found guilty in 1985 of espionage and theft for leaking three classified spy satellite photographs to the British magazine Jane's Defence Weekly. - - Derrick Curry, a college student convicted by a federal jury in 1993 of conspiracy and distribution of crack cocaine. Curry was sent to prison for 19 years and seven months, with no possibility of parole. - - Charles F. Campbell, who was convicted in 1994 of conspiring to distribute more than 50 grams of crack cocaine, although he played a minor role in the conspiracy. Campbell and Curry had their sentences commuted by Clinton, authorizing their release from prison, while Morison received a presidential pardon, according to a White House list. Morison, grandson of the famed naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison, also was convicted in 1985 on separate espionage and theft charges for taking portions of two other Navy documents, also classified as secret, and keeping them at his apartment in Crofton, where he still lives, according to his former attorney. Morison, then 40, was sentenced to two years in federal prison by a federal judge who did not accept his attorneys' contention that their client had been unfairly categorized as a spy. Since the sentencing, there has been considerable legal debate about whether espionage statutes apply to disclosure of information to the press. Before Morison's case, no one had been convicted for disclosing classified information to journalists. Morison's former attorney, Mark H. Lynch with the American Civil Liberties Union, said he was delighted by the pardon. "Obviously an enormous number of people disclose classified information to the press," Lynch said. "Sam was picked on by the government to run a test case to see whether the statute applied." Michael Schatzow, who prosecuted Morison, called Lynch's statement "absurd," and said that what Morrison did "was not a mere leak to the press" to get a story out, but rather an effort to "win favor with a potential employer." Curry's case was controversial because, before his arrest, the 20-year-old had never been in trouble with the law, and was believed to be nothing more than a delivery boy -- "a flunky," one FBI agent said then -- for a crack cocaine ring. Curry, a one-time basketball standout at Northwestern High School in Hyattsville, contended that he broke no laws and did not understand that he was transporting drugs. Curry's sentence was mandatory because of a 1988 law that created minimum-mandatory federal sentences for possession of crack cocaine that are far harsher than for possession of powder cocaine. Had Curry been involved with a ring that dealt in powder cocaine, his sentence could have been far lighter, according to the law. As it was, his penalty was nearly three times the length of the prison sentence served by most convicted murderers. Curry's father, Arthur, a retired Prince George's County high school principal, said last night that he had just brought his son home from a prison in Cumberland, Md. He said he and his family "are just very grateful . . . [to Clinton] for showing mercy and giving my son a second chance" after the son made a "terrible mistake." Campbell's case, which occurred a year after Curry's sentencing, had a twist. Under the federal sentencing statute, Campbell, then 50, faced at least 20 years in prison. However, Senior U.S. District Judge Louis Oberdorfer surprised defense attorneys as well as prosecutors by giving Campbell and a co-defendant much less prison time. Oberdorfer ruled that applying the 1998 federal sentencing law to Campbell and the co-defendant would have been "cruel and unusual" punishment, and thus unconstitutional. Instead, the judge imposed 33-month prison terms -- the same sentence that the two likely would have faced in a powder cocaine case. Prosecutors appealed the decision. Roger Adams, the Justice Department lawyer handling yesterday's actions, said Campbell ultimately received 240 months in prison and 10 years' supervised release. Abbe Jolles, who represented the co-defendant, said last night about Campbell's commutation, "That Bill Clinton, I could just kiss him." Reached at his McLean home yesterday, Oberdorfer said he would not comment. Staff writer Martin Weil contributed to this report. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D