Pubdate: Sun, 8 Jun 2008
Page: A02
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2008 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Darryl Fears, Washington Post Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/crack+cocaine
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Sentencing+Commission

COMING HOME AFTER A REDUCED SENTENCE

Those Released Since Disparities in Cocaine Penalties Were Offset 
Find a Different World

Days after her release from prison, Nerika Jenkins made a bold 
prediction: "I'll bounce right back into society."

Although the world changed considerably over the 11 years of her 
imprisonment, she said, "I'm not afraid." She took vocational classes 
- -- masonry, carpentry, painting, culinary arts, Microsoft Excel and 
horticulture -- while serving time in Philadelphia and Danbury, Conn. 
"I'm just ready to achieve my short-term goal, building a nursing 
home," she said. "They're always in need of places for the elderly."

More than 7,000 crack cocaine offenders such as Jenkins, 36, have 
received reduced sentences since March, when the U.S. Sentencing 
Commission put retroactive sentences guidelines into effect to offset 
what the commission felt was overly harsh punishments for crack 
cocaine related crimes, and it is an open question whether they will 
succeed or return to a life behind bars.

The majority of the reductions so far have been granted in the U.S. 
Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, covering Maryland, Virginia, 
West Virginia and the Carolinas, according to a report by the 
Sentencing Commission on retroactive crack cocaine sentencing 
released in May. By contrast, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th 
Circuit, covering California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, Alaska, 
Nevada, as well as other states and territories, has granted about 
the same number of reductions as the smallest jurisdiction, the U.S. 
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington.

About 35 percent of inmates who were granted reductions by federal 
courts had been released as of May 31, according to the Bureau of 
Prisons. Among them is Willie Mays Aikens, the former Major League 
Baseball slugger whose 15-year sentence for possessing 63 grams crack 
cocaine -- about the weight of a large Snickers candy bar -- made him 
a cause celebre among activists fighting long crack cocaine punishments.

Aikens was released in the first week of June, nearly 22 years to the 
day after the cocaine overdose of University of Maryland basketball 
star Len Bias. Bias's death spurred Congress to pass the Anti-Drug 
Abuse Act of 1986. Under the mistaken belief that Bias's death was 
caused by crack cocaine, lawmakers made sentences for crack cocaine 
crimes harsher than those committed for powder cocaine by a 100-to-1 ratio.

Nearly 90 percent of those who received the tough sentences for crack 
cocaine were black men and women. Most users and dealers of powder 
cocaine are white and Latino.

Jenkins is one of the people who activists say were wrongly affected 
by the law: wives and girlfriends. She was snared by police in New 
York who accused her of collaborating with a boyfriend who was 
dealing crack in Virginia. Prosecutors asked her to testify, but she 
refused, saying she knew nothing of the boyfriend's operation.

"I went to trial, and they gave me 230 months, 19 years," said 
Jenkins, a first-time offender. When her anger subsided, she vowed 
not to languish in prison, and she took courses.

When the sentencing commission decided to make the new guidelines 
retroactive so that convicts in prison could take advantage, Jenkins 
and her mother, Ira Lee Johnson, filed a motion to reduce her jail time.

"I became aware of it in January," she said. The next month, a judge 
in Virginia, where the case originated, sent her a letter informing 
her that she was eligible for immediate release. Prosecutors were 
given a week to respond, and they did, objecting to a reduction. The 
judge overruled them.

Within weeks, Jenkins's sentence was reduced from 230 months to 151. 
"I had to serve four extra months because of a discrepancy between 
what the judge said and what the paperwork said," Jenkins complained, 
but soon she was in a halfway house.

Natasha J. Marshall, 48, underwent a similar experience in Fresno, 
when police arrested her husband, a drug dealer. Marshall said she 
had no idea that he was dealing, but she was sentenced to 15 years. A 
sentence reduction released her in March, after she had served 11.

Now living in an apartment with her daughter, Marshall is readjusting 
to a world dominated by devices that were not widely used when she 
entered the system: cellphones, flat-screen televisions and personal 
computers. Wanting a job, she was startled to find that applications 
are now submitted online. After spending a quarter of her life behind 
bars, she is still haunted.

"I can't sleep for more than five hours," Marshall said, with the 
cacophony of prison life echoing in her dreams. After 11 years of 
showers, she always takes a bath.

Slowly but surely, said her probation officer, Brian Bedrosian, 
Marshall is recovering nicely. "She calls in, and she's taking care 
of business," he said.

Marshall enrolled in an online business administration course at 
Ashford University in Clinton, Iowa. "She's doing very well," said 
Brian Zigich, her enrollment adviser. "She's on the ball. She's one 
of my best students. You can see the motivation in her. She's one of 
the few you don't have to worry about."

Zigich's characterization of Marshall defies concerns by the Justice 
Department about the impact that crack sentencing reductions would 
have on public safety. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey warned 
that the release of crack offenders would possibly return dangerous 
drug dealers back to neighborhoods ravaged by the crack cocaine trade.

Mukasey and other department officials argued that inmates would 
overwhelm the federal court system with motions for sentence 
reductions, forcing prosecutors to virtually retry the cases.

That has yet to happen, said Mary Price, vice president and general 
counsel for Families Against Mandatory Minimums. "We haven't heard 
anything from the department or elsewhere bearing out their initial 
fear that these releases would happen in some en masse way, pouring 
out people into communities," she said.

Price acknowledged that it is too early to fully gauge the impact of 
the reductions. "There will be people who will find themselves in 
this situation again -- there's no question about that," she said. 
"But that would happen if we let them early or at their regular time."

The Bureau of Prisons, federal probation officials and the commission 
have not released information showing how many inmates have committed 
crimes in the three months since the retroaction was applied.

"I'm very hopeful that our federal government is keeping track of the 
recidivism numbers," said Charles D. Stimson, a former federal 
prosecutor who is now a senior legal fellow at the conservative 
Heritage Foundation. "I'm not one to suggest that all those who are 
eligible for release will be re-arrested. I'm sure they won't be. But 
it would be helpful to inform the public and [Congress] on an ongoing basis." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake