Pubdate: Tue, 20 Nov 2007
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Page: B01
Copyright: 2007 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Avis Thomas-Lester, Washington Post Staff Writer
Cited: Families Against Mandatory Minimums http://www.famm.org
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Families+Against+Mandatory+Minimums
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?244 (Sentencing - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Sentencing+Commission
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

BROTHER'S DRUG SENTENCE IGNITED WOMAN'S CRUSADE

D.C. Group Helps Win Relaxed Penalties

Julie Stewart was sitting at her desk at a think tank in the District 
17 years ago when her telephone rang. It was her brother calling to 
say he had been busted for growing marijuana.

"How stupid," she recalled thinking. She figured he would get off 
with a relatively light punishment -- perhaps a little jail time, 
maybe probation. After all, she reasoned, he had no record. And it 
was "only" marijuana.

Instead, for cultivating 365 six-inch marijuana plants, Stewart's 
brother received five years in federal prison, a sentence Stewart 
considered harsh.

"I was astounded," said Stewart, 51, of Chevy Chase. "We are putting 
people in prison with sentence lengths that used to be reserved for 
the most violent offenders."

That was Stewart's introduction to the nation's mandatory minimum 
sentencing laws, which dictated how much time her brother would spend 
behind bars. Anguish over that sentence led her to establish Families 
Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), one of several advocacy groups 
credited with persuading the U.S. Sentencing Commission recently to 
relax the penalties prescribed for some crack cocaine offenses.

Stewart testified last week before the commission, which sets 
guidelines for sentencing defendants in federal court. Joined by 
people from as far as Texas and Kansas who have been affected by 
mandatory minimums, she urged members to make the new rules 
retroactive so that thousands of drug offenders would qualify for 
release from federal prison.

Stewart's advocacy began in 1991 shortly after her brother, Jeff, was 
sentenced. She enlisted two Capitol Hill lawyer friends to help her 
find other people affected by mandatory sentences. She organized a 
meeting and invited people to share their experiences. They came from 
as far away as Florida and New Hampshire.

"I remember sitting there as we each went around the room, listening 
to people say, 'My son got 17 years for his first offense' and 'My 
son got 24 years for his first offense,' " Stewart said. "I started 
to think my brother's five years was a bargain."

In its early days, said Stewart, the goal of FAMM was to gather 
information on as many egregious examples as possible. She found one 
nearby in Prince George's County.

Derrick Curry was a 19-year-old college student when he was caught 
with more than 50 grams of crack cocaine and sentenced to 19 1/2 
years in federal prison for conspiracy to distribute the drug.

Mandatory minimums came out of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which 
was pushed by then-House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill (D-Mass.) as 
Boston and the nation's capital reeled over the cocaine overdose 
death of University of Maryland basketball star and Celtics top draft 
pick Len Bias. The law established a tougher standard for defendants 
convicted of crack vs. powder cocaine.

Civil rights groups and some legal experts have long argued that the 
mandatory minimums unfairly target black men, who statistics showed 
were more likely to be in possession of the less costly crack form of 
cocaine than were white drug users.

Arthur Curry, Derrick's father, met Stewart at one of her meetings 
after his son was arrested. He said she taught him how to advocate 
for his son, now 37.

"Julie attended the trial with me and my family, and she was at the 
sentencing," said Curry, a former Upper Marlboro resident and 
longtime educator who now lives in North Carolina. "I had absolutely 
no experience. I didn't know what to expect. Just to have someone 
there who could give me information . . . was so important. We are 
forever grateful for Julie and FAMM and their intervention in our lives."

Indeed, Arthur Curry credits Stewart and her organization for helping 
him put the spotlight on his son's case. In 2001, eight years after 
he entered a federal prison, Derrick Curry was released in an 
eleventh-hour pardon by then-President Clinton before leaving office.

That Stewart would end up fighting for justice for thousands of men 
and women, some she will never meet, is not surprising, friends said. 
They describe the mother of two young girls as deeply committed to 
her cause and say she has spent countless hours advising and 
comforting families affected by mandatory minimums.

"For her and so many who get involved in this issue, it starts with 
your loved one, but then you meet so many people, and you realize it 
could be anyone's loved one that this could happen to," said FAMM 
colleague Monica Pratt. "It makes you feel compassion and anger about 
the ways these laws affect people."

A self-described libertarian, Stewart said she believes lawbreakers 
should face penalties. But the time, she said, should fit the crime.

"I think it's easy for members of Congress to forget how long 10 
years is," Stewart said. "Sentences have gotten so inflated in the 
last 20 years that we no longer think about what that means to the 
person serving the sentence or their family."

Besides fighting to get mandatory minimums repealed, FAMM also works 
to change some states' sentencing laws and serves as a resource for 
organizations across the country.

"Julie is a very effective advocate, and she has a high degree of 
credibility," said Judge William W. Wilkins of the U.S. Court of 
Appeals for the 4th Circuit, the first chairman of the U.S. 
Sentencing Commission. "She always has her facts down, and she firmly 
believes in what she is doing."

Stewart's work and that of her colleagues have led to some victories 
for FAMM. In 1991, Stewart went to work on Michigan's "650 lifer 
law," which required life sentences for anyone convicted of crimes 
involving 650 grams or more of cocaine or heroin.

FAMM hired someone to work against the Michigan law, and in 1998, the 
law was changed to reduce the mandatory sentence from life to 15 or 
20 years. Michigan later repealed most of its mandatory minimum drug 
sentences, Stewart said.

Stewart said her goal is to see the end of such laws across the 
nation, just as similar laws were repealed 40 years ago. In the 1950s 
and 1960s, she said, drug offenders faced mandatory minimum sentences 
under the Boggs Act of 1951, named for its sponsor, then-Rep. Hale 
Boggs (D-La.). The law was repealed by Congress in 1973 after it 
became clear the sentences served no deterrent value, she said.

"That reminds us that it can be done and the pendulum will swing back 
to more reasonable sentencing," Stewart said of the Boggs Act. "I 
have to remain optimistic, or else I would close up shop." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake