Pubdate: Tue, 24 Dec 2013
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1
Copyright: 2014 Hearst Communications Inc.
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Debra J. Saunders
Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/people/Clarence+Aaron

THE ANTIPARDON PARDON ATTORNEY

The Department of Justice should get a new name - like the Department 
That Can See No Evil, the Department of Dungeons or the Department of 
Cover-ups.

Once a bad law becomes the law of the land, it takes years of 
activism engaged by countless voices to force Washington to patch 
things up for a handful of the bad law's victims. In 1993, Clarence 
Aaron, a 24-year-old college student, was convicted for his role in a 
crack cocaine deal. Aaron neither bought nor sold drugs; he was paid 
$1,500 for connecting two dealers. Nonetheless a federal court 
sentenced him to life without parole.

In "Snitch," a January 1999 "Frontline" documentary, producer Ofra 
Bikel reported how career dealers were able to reduce their sentences 
by testifying against Aaron, who was condemned to life in prison.

Few prosecutors would argue that life until death in prison is a just 
sentence for a firsttime nonviolent offender. And yet the Department 
of Justice was content to let stand this out-of-whack punishment.

It took a small army of outraged individuals and attorneys some 14 
years to win Aaron and seven other crack offenders commutations that 
President Obama signed Dec. 19.

Families Against Mandatory Minimums vetted inmates whose stories 
brought a human face to the toll of draconian federal mandatory 
minimum sentences. Criminal Justice Policy Foundation head Eric 
Sterling worked with Aaron's mother, Linda, and cousin Aaron Martin 
to publicize this medieval punishment.

I first wrote in favor of a presidential commutation for Aaron in 
2001. In 2004, the Department of Justice pardon attorney recommended 
that President George W. Bush deny Aaron's request. In 2008, the 
White House returned the denial recommendation and asked a new pardon 
attorney to review the petition. Again, the Department of Justice 
recommended denial.

That never should have happened.

The pardon attorney is supposed to recommend clemency for worthy 
offenders. But as former pardon staff attorney Sam Morison told me, 
inside the Department of Justice there's "institutional resistance" 
to fixing misdeeds committed by federal prosecutors.

It's easier to keep wronged offenders locked up and out of sight. 
Once outsiders identified Aaron as one, said Morison, "he was marked."

Later, ProPublica's Dafna Linzer reported in the Washington Post that 
federal pardon attorney Ron Rodgers had withheld the sentencing 
judge's and prosecutor's newfound support for a sentence reduction in 
2008. That is, he misled President Bush. Inspector General Michael E. 
Horowitz confirmed Linzer's story - and still Rodgers remains the 
pardon attorney.

Practically nobody would argue that the feds should put a young adult 
away for life for a nonviolent conviction. But when it happens, and 
according to the ACLU it has happened with some 2,000 federal 
inmates, the Justice Department covers its tracks.

That's how a bad law does bad things. Think of the Affordable Care 
Act. Still in its infancy, the White House will tweak it to make it 
work. But once entrenched, there are no fixes.

So, yes, I want to stop Obamacare now, before it's too late.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom