Pubdate: Tue, 14 Jul 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Authors: Sari Horwitz and Juliet Eilperin

OBAMA CUTS SENTENCES OF 46 INMATES

Drug Offenders' Terms Reduced As Part of Effort to Amend Justice System

President Obama on Monday commuted the sentences of 46 drug 
offenders, more than double the number of commutations he granted 
earlier this year, as part of his effort to reform the criminal justice system.

In a Facebook video posted Monday, the president said the 46 
prisoners had served sentences disproportionate to their crimes.

"These men and women were not hardened criminals, but the 
overwhelming majority had been sentenced to at least 20 years," he 
said. "I believe that at its heart, America is a nation of second 
chances. And I believe these folks deserve their second chance." He 
noted that in his letters to them, he urged that they make different 
choices now that their sentences had been commuted.

Monday's commutations mark the most in a single day since the 
administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Obama now has commuted 
89 sentences, surpassing the combined number granted by presidents 
Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

Of the 89 commutations Obama has granted while in office, 76 have 
gone to nonviolent drug offenders who met criteria set by the Justice 
Department last year. The commutations come as the administration is 
working to reduce costs and overcrowding in federal prisons and to 
provide relief to inmates who were sentenced under the harsh 
guidelines put in place in the late 1980s as the country was 
grappling with the crack cocaine epidemic.

One of the inmates who received clemency was Katina Stuckey Smith of 
Montrose, Ga., the mother of Denver Broncos wide receiver Demaryius 
Thomas. She was sentenced in July 2000 t0 292 months for conspiracy 
to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and crack.

"Right now, with our overall crime rate and incarceration rate both 
falling, we're at a moment where some good people in both parties, 
Republicans and Democrats, and folks all across the country are 
coming together around ideas to make the system work smarter, make it 
work better," Obama said in the video. "And I'm determined to do my 
part wherever I can. That's one of the reasons why I'm commuting the 
sentences of 46 prisoners who were convicted many years, or in some 
cases decades, ago."

Since the Obama administration announced last year that it would 
grant clemency to nonviolent drug offenders, more than 35,000 
inmates, or about 17 percent of the federal prison population, have 
applied for early release.

In December, Obama granted clemency to eight federal drug offenders, 
four of whom had been sentenced to life in prison. In March, the 
president commuted the sentences of 22 drug offenders. At that time, 
White House counsel W. Neil Eggleston said that under current 
sentencing guidelines, many of the individuals granted clemency would 
have already served their time in prison.

The latest round of commutations comes before Obama is to visit a 
federal prison in Oklahoma on Thursday, the first such visit by a 
sitting U.S. president. He also will address his administration's 
effort to overhaul the criminal justice system in a speech Tuesday at 
the NAACP's annual conference in Philadelphia.

Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott (D-Va.), who has co-authored a bill with 
Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) to reform federal sentencing 
laws, said in an interview that the commutations "try to modify the 
damaging effects of draconian minimums that violate common sense," 
but are not a substitute for legislation.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the fact that tens of 
thousands of federal prisoners have petitioned for clemency 
demonstrates "how important it is for Congress to take action, that 
congressional action in this case could be much broader in terms of 
delivering the kind of justice and implementing the kind of reforms 
the president believes is long overdue."

The inmates granted clemency were mostly men and include 14 people 
who were given life sentences, such as Larry Darnell Belcher, of 
Martinsville, Va., who was convicted in 1997 of possession with 
intent to distribute cocaine and marijuana. The inmate who had been 
in prison the longest was Dunning Wells of Fort Myers, Fla., who was 
sentenced to 502 months in February 1992 for unlawful possession of a 
firearm, distribution of cocaine and possession of a firearm during a 
drug trafficking crime.

One of the inmates, Douglas M. Lindsay II, of Newberry, S.C., was a 
first-time, nonviolent offender. Before being sentenced to life in 
prison in 1996, he was an Army veteran who worked with adults with 
mental disabilities. Lindsay sold crack, according to Sarah Godfrey 
of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, "in what he now recognizes as 
a misguided attempt to finance his college education."

First, the inmates will be sent to halfway houses to help begin their 
transition.

They are to be released from the custody of the Bureau of Prisons on 
Nov. 10. Although advocates for inmates have praised the Obama 
administration's efforts to provide relief to prisoners who received 
severe sentences, they also have complained that the extensive number 
of applications from prisoners and the complicated review process 
have slowed the effort.

The Justice Department and the White House are being aided by 
Clemency Project 2014, comprised of four groups that have brought 
lawyers together from across the country to work pro bono to read 
prisoner applications and to help prepare deserving petitions to be 
sent to the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney. From 
there, petitions with recommendations go to Deputy Attorney General 
Sally Quillian Yates's office. Yates then sends petitions with her 
recommendations to Eggleston at the White House, who recommends 
deserving candidates to Obama.

Lawmakers in Congress are debating a bipartisan effort to change 
sentencing laws.

"We made a terrible mistake 30 years ago when we created the laws 
that sent these men and women away for so long," said Julie Stewart, 
president and founder of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. "What 
the president did for them today is its own form of justice, leavened 
with mercy." But, she said, the president can only do so much:

"Ultimately, no number of commutations can mitigate the continuing 
impact of excessively harsh drug mandatory minimums, which is why we 
need to reform sentencing policies."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom