Pubdate: Sat, 23 Nov 2013
Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2013 Creators Syndicate
Contact: 
http://www.staradvertiser.com/info/Star-Advertiser_Letter_to_the_Editor.html
Website: http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5154
Author: Jacob Sullum
Note: Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine and a 
columnist with the Creators Syndicate.

THE PUNISHMENT IS THE CRIME FOR MANY PRISONERS IN U.S.

Nine years ago, Ronald Washington swiped two Michael Jordan jerseys 
from a Foot Locker in Shreveport, La.

Although the shirts were on sale for $45 each, they were officially 
priced at $60, putting their combined value above $100.

The difference between the discounted price and the list price was 
the difference between a misdemeanor punishable by no more than six 
months in jail and a felony that triggered a life sentence.

Washington is one of the prisoners profiled in a new report from the 
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on nonviolent offenders serving 
sentences of life without parole (LWOP).

There were at least 3,278 such prisoners in the U.S. at the end of 
2012, an astonishing number that reflects decades of tough-on-crime 
policies unconstrained by justice, wisdom or compassion.

Like many of those prisoners, Washington qualified as a "habitual 
offender" under a law aimed at incorrigible criminals. But if none of 
his prior offenses - which included forgery, cocaine possession, 
theft and burglary - merited a life sentence, it is hard to see how 
the addition of shoplifting could possibly justify that penalty.

If Washington's punishment was grossly disproportionate, how should 
we describe the life sentences imposed on repeat offenders whose 
so-called crimes involved no victims?

At the age of 28, James R. Byers Jr. was sentenced to life under 
South Carolina's "three strikes" law for a single $10 crack sale; all 
of his prior convictions involved drug offenses.

Kevin Ott was 33 when he began serving a life sentence in Oklahoma 
for possessing 3-1/2 ounces of methamphetamine while on parole for 
marijuana charges.

Three marijuana offenses, the last involving less than two pounds, 
triggered a life sentence for 35-year-old Cornell Hood II under 
Louisiana's habitual offender law.

Nearly two-thirds of the LWOP prisoners counted by the ACLU are in 
the federal system, almost all of them for drug offenses that are 
punished according to rigid formulas based on weight and criminal history.

That's how Timothy Tyler ended up with a life sentence for selling 
LSD to fellow Deadheads after getting probation for two similar 
offenses. He was 24 when the government permanently stripped him of 
his freedom.

Even drug offenders without prior convictions can be sent to prison 
for the rest of their lives.

When she was 26, Teresa Griffin was sentenced to life in federal 
prison for serving as a mule in her boyfriend's cocaine operation. 
Alice Marie Johnson got the same sentence when she was 42 for holding 
money and passing along messages as part of a cocaine distribution 
conspiracy. Both were first-time offenders.

The ACLU's report does not include people serving lengthy mandatory 
terms that amount to life sentences - such as Weldon Angelos, who is 
serving a 55-year sentence in federal prison for possessing a gun 
during three marijuana sales, or Morton Berger, who is serving a 
200-year sentence in Arizona for possessing child pornography. 
Prisoners like Berger would not have been counted anyway, because the 
ACLU excluded sex offenders.

Furthermore, three states with nonviolent offenders serving LWOP 
sentences - Delaware, Nevada and Virginia - did not provide data. 
Hence the ACLU's grim tally, appalling as it is, understates the 
number of people unjustly condemned to spend the rest of their lives in cages.

"Today," the ACLU notes, "the United States is virtually alone in its 
willingness to sentence nonviolent offenders to die behind bars."

It urges state and federal legislators to abolish that practice and 
make the change retroactive so that current prisoners would be 
eligible for resentencing.

In the meantime, it says, governors and the president should use 
their clemency powers, which they have exercised in recent years with 
scandalous infrequency, to free people who never should have received 
life sentences.

The ACLU also suggests that legislators "recalibrate drug policies."

Since four-fifths of the people serving LWOP sentences for nonviolent 
crimes are drug offenders, more than a tweak may be needed. But we 
could start by recognizing that murdering someone is worse than 
selling him drugs.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom