Pubdate: Fri, 22 Dec 2000
Source: Salon (US Web)
Copyright: 2000 Salon
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Author: Anthony York
Note: Anthony York is an associate editor for Salon News

CLERGY ASKS CLINTON FOR A FINAL ACT

Religious Leaders Call For Clemency For Thousands Of Imprisoned 
Nonviolent Drug Offenders.

Dec. 22, 2000 -- SAN FRANCISCO -- With time running out on the 
Clinton presidency, a group of religious leaders has come together to 
plead for the freedom of thousands of nonviolent drug offenders. The 
group, which calls itself the Coalition for Jubilee Clemency, has 
sent a letter to President Clinton, signed by more than 600 religious 
leaders, asking him to consider commuting what they view as unfair 
sentences.

"Before William Jefferson Clinton leaves office on January 20, 2001 
he should establish, as part of his legacy, demonstrable acts that 
show he stood for justice by freeing thousands of federal prisoners 
sentenced unjustly," the letter says. The call for clemency comes 
amid signs that the drug war zeitgeist is in flux. Steven 
Soderbergh's new movie "Traffic," starring Michael Douglas and 
Catherine Zeta-Jones, hits theaters over the holidays, just in time 
for Oscar consideration. It's one of the few Hollywood films to 
preach that thewar on drugs is unwinnable.

Last week, Debra Saunders, a conservative columnist for the San 
Francisco Chronicle, penned a column endorsing the coalition's move, 
writing that "this should be the perfect time for President Clinton 
to commute the sentences of low-level nonviolent drug offenders in 
federal prison."

During the recent congressional elections, Republican Senate 
candidate Tom Campbell's criticism of the war on drugs was a 
centerpiece of his campaign. "Recovering Republican" columnist 
Arianna Huffington has made reforming America's drug-sentencing laws 
her new crusade. And New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, a Republican, has 
called for the complete decriminalization of drugs.

Though Campbell was shellacked in his race against incumbent Democrat 
Dianne Feinstein, California voters overwhelmingly approved Prop. 36, 
which would require people arrested for nonviolent drug offenses to 
be sent to drug treatment centers instead of jail or prison. The 
measure was opposed by nearly every law enforcement group in the 
state but passed with 61 percent of the vote.

But Eric Sterling of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation remains 
pessimistic that the battle against the war on drugs will be won on 
moral grounds. Though he acknowledges that the backlash against the 
drug war is growing, he says he doesn't think "it's reached a tipping 
point yet. I could be mistaken. If our economy were to go into a 
serious recession and the talk of our great surplus ceased, people 
might look more profoundly at the economics here. People are aware 
that the war of drugs has been a colossal waste of money."

Sterling says the coalition is focusing its efforts on getting 
Clinton to act before he leaves office: On "Jan. 20, the political 
reality is transfigured, so to speak," he says. "Mr. Clinton has the 
constitutional authority to act without the support of Congress. We 
believe his historical legacy regarding incarceration can be 
ameliorated here."

During Clinton's presidency, the federal prison population has 
swelled from 73,000 to more than 146,000. Sterling estimates that 
roughly 24,000 of these prisoners are nonviolent drug offenders. He 
bases his estimates on an extrapolation of statistics provided in a 
1994 analysis of the federal prison population by the Department of 
Justice.

"It could be a little more, could be less," Sterling says. "Even if 
we're off by a few thousand, it's still more than at any time in 
history."

Yet the political obstacles to reforming the criminal justice system 
and drug sentencing laws remain formidable. For example, an enormous 
battle has erupted in California over the implementation of Prop. 36. 
"There are already some efforts to divert money away from treatment 
and into the courts," says Scott Ehlers, spokesman for Americans for 
Medical Rights, which sponsored the California initiative. "We're 
trying to make sure that drug treatment is the first priority."

The initiative had a powerful, bipartisan group of opponents, 
including law enforcement groups, Gov. Gray Davis, the powerful 
prison guards union and White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey. "It's 
never hurt us to have McCaffery come out against one of our 
initiatives," Ehlers says. "He represents the status quo on American 
drug policy. Obviously, the American public does not agree with how 
the drug war is being run."

But while McCaffery and others, like California Attorney General Bill 
Lockyer, opposed Prop. 36, they have been supportive of its 
philosophical thrust.

"He has had some good things to say -- that we can't arrest our way 
out of the drug problem, that we need to provide some more drug 
treatment," Ehlers says of McCaffery. "The problem is, his actions 
don't follow his words. We've seen more arrests for drug offenses by 
the Clinton administration than by any other. They continue to try to 
incarcerate our way out of our drug problem."

McCaffery's office did not return calls seeking comment.

While Lockyer has voiced support in the past for drug treatment as an 
alternative to prison, he was unequivocal in his opposition to the 
ballot measure. "Prop. 36 will destroy California's highly effective 
drug court system and effectively decriminalize hardcore drugs in 
California," Lockyer said before the vote on the initiative.

The clergy's movement may run into similar problems. In a recent 
Rolling Stone interview, Clinton said that sentences "in many [drug] 
cases are too long for nonviolent offenders," but indicated it was 
too late for him to act.

Clinton spokesman Mark Kitchens said the White House had received the 
group's letter, but "at this time we don't have anything to say or 
comment on it."

Ehlers holds out hope that the drug laws might be changed during 
George W. Bush's presidency, even though Texas had the 
fastest-growing prison population in America on Bush's watch. "It's 
long been my contention that for the drug war to end, it's going to 
have to be ended by Republicans and not Democrats," he said. "It took 
Richard Nixon to go to China and it'll take a Republican to end the 
drug war."
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