Pubdate: Sat, 23 Dec 2000
Source: Plain Dealer, The (OH)
Copyright: 2000 The Plain Dealer
Contact:  1801 Superior Ave., Cleveland, OH 44114
Website: http://www.cleveland.com/news/
Forum: http://forums.cleveland.com/index.html
Author: Sonya Ross, Associated Press
Cited: Families Against Mandatory Minimums http://www.famm.org/
Related: Dorothy Gaines http://www.november.org/wall-Dorothy.html
Kemba Smith http://www.famm.org/smith.htm

CLINTON PARDONS WOMEN WHO RECEIVED MANDATORY SENTENCES IN DRUG CASES

WASHINGTON - In the time it takes to earn a bachelor's degree, Kemba
Smith went from college student to battered woman on the lam with a
drug-dealing man.

She loved and feared her boyfriend, Peter Hall, too much to help the
FBI capture him. Hall eventually was killed. Smith got 25 years in
prison for drug crimes about which she and her supporters contend she
knew very little.

President Clinton set her free yesterday, along with Dorothy Gaines,
whose 19-year sentence also underscored disparities in federally
mandated punishment for bit players in the war on drugs.

"I'm real happy. That's the only thing I asked for for Christmas,"
said Gaines' 16-year-old son Phillip, who wrote to Clinton seeking a
pardon for his mother. "I said the greatest gift you could send me was
to send me my mom. And he did it."

Gaines, 42, of Mobile, Ala., and Smith, 29, of Richmond, Va., were
among three prisoners whose sentences were commuted by Clinton
yesterday. The president also issued 59 pardons to various other
individuals.

Gaines served seven years. Smith served six and gave birth while in
prison to her son Armani.

"President Clinton's commutation of Kemba's sentence answers our
prayers," said Smith's parents, Gus and Odessa Smith.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which took on Smith's
case in 1996, said it was a dramatic example of the need to eliminate
mandatory minimum sentences established by Congress in the 1980s to
take down drug kingpins.

The problem is that the kingpins are able to cooperate with
authorities and barter their freedom, while lower-level players lack
enough information to do that and typically end up in prison for most
of their lives, fund director Elaine Jones said.

Those offenders often are young, black or Latino, poor and before the
judge on a first-time offense, Jones said.

"President Clinton has acted correctly," Jones said. "We hope Congress
will move forward to reform these overly harsh sentencing policies."

Smith and Gaines contend they never actually handled the crack cocaine
that put them behind bars. They said all they did was stand by their
men.

Smith's role involved renting a storage space here, a car or apartment
there. Gaines accepted badly needed cash from her boyfriend, who later
testified that she did not know the money came from drug proceeds.

The two received long sentences because their offenses involved crack
cocaine.

"These individuals are the tip of a very large iceberg," said Laura
Sager, executive director of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, an
advocacy group. "There are thousands of low-level, nonviolent
offenders in federal prisons and more pouring in every day."
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