Pubdate: Fri, 31 Jan 2014
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2014 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Sari Horwitz

EARLY PRISON RELEASES SOUGHT

White House Will Seek Federal Inmates for Clemency

The Obama administration, stepping up its efforts to overhaul the 
criminal justice system, called Thursday for the early release of 
more low-level, nonviolent drug offenders from federal prisons.

Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole, speaking to the New York State 
Bar Association's Criminal Justice Section, said the administration 
wants to free inmates who no longer pose a threat to public safety 
and whose long-term incarceration "harms our criminal justice 
system." He appealed to defense lawyers to identify candidates for clemency.

"You each can play a critical role in this process by providing a 
qualified petitioner - one who has a clean record in prison, does not 
present a threat to public safety, and who is facing a life or 
near-life sentence that is excessive under current law - with the 
opportunity to get a fresh start," Cole told the lawyers.

His remarks were part of a broader prison reform effort by the 
Justice Department. In August, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. 
announced that low-level drug offenders with no connection to gangs 
or large-scale drug organizations would no longer be charged with 
offenses that called for severe mandatory sentences. President Obama 
later commuted the sentences of eight inmates serving a long time for 
crack cocaine convictions.

Each of them had served at least 15 years and had been convicted 
before the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act, which sought to reduce the 
sentencing disparity between those convicted of crack and powder 
cocaine crimes.

"The president's grant of commutations for these eight individuals is 
only a first step," Cole said Thursday. "There are more low-level, 
nonviolent drug offenders who remain in prison, and who would likely 
have received a substantially lower sentence if convicted of 
precisely the same offenses today."

It's unclear how many federal inmates could qualify for clemency, but 
thousands are serving time for crack cocaine offenses.

Civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, 
applauded Cole's announcement.

"The Obama administration is taking an important step toward undoing 
the damage that extreme sentencing has done to so many in our 
criminal justice system," said Laura W. Murphy, director of the 
ACLU's Washington Legislative Office.

In other action Thursday on criminal justice reform, the Senate 
Judiciary Committee voted to advance a bill, sponsored by Sens. Mike 
Lee (R-Utah) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), that would reduce 
mandatory minimum sentences for federal drug offenders by half and 
allow 8,800 federal inmates imprisoned for crack cocaine crimes to 
return to court to seek punishments in line with the Fair Sentencing Act.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican on the panel, 
called the legislation "a step backward." In a statement, he cited a 
letter sent to Holder from the National Association of Assistant 
United States Attorneys that said "the merits of mandatory minimum 
sentences are abundantly clear."

"They provide us leverage to secure cooperation from defendants. . . 
. They protect law-abiding citizens and help to hold crime in check," 
the group said.

Julie Stewart, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, 
called the bill "bipartisan and reasonable" and said it would "save 
taxpayers billions of dollars by locking up fewer nonviolent drug 
offenders for shorter periods of time."

Holder, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on 
Wednesday, said federal prison costs represent one-third of the 
Justice Department budget. He called the enormous costs of 
overburdened prisons "a growing and potentially very dangerous problem."

The cost of incarceration in the United States was $80 billion in 
2010. The U.S. population has grown by about a third since 1980, but 
the federal prison population has increased by about 800 percent and 
federal prisons are operating at nearly 40 percent over capacity, 
Justice officials said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom