Pubdate: Thu, 24 Apr 2014
Source: South Florida Times (FL)
Copyright: 2014 Beatty Media LLC
Contact: http://www.sfltimes.com/index.php?option=com_contact&Itemid=3
Website: http://www.sfltimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5504
Author: Eric Tucker

BREAK COMING FOR SOME INMATES

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department is encouraging nonviolent federal
inmates who have behaved in prison, have no significant criminal
history and have already served more than 10 years behind bars to
apply for clemency, officials announced Wednesday.

The initiative is part of a broader Obama administration effort to
trim the nation's prison population, ease sentencing disparities
arising from drug possession crimes and scale back the use of strict
punishments for drug offenders without a violent past.

The goal is to create a larger pool of eligible prisoners the Justice
Department can recommend to the president to consider for shorter sentences.

Deputy Attorney General James Cole laid out half a dozen criteria for
clemency that the government will consider in evaluating future inmate
applications.

The announcement is aimed primarily at drug prisoners, especially
those sentenced under old guidelines that resulted in significantly
harsher penalties for people caught with crack cocaine than for those
who possessed the powder form of the drug.

But it also applies to federal inmates imprisoned for other crimes,
provided they meet the same criteria.

"These defendants were properly held accountable for their criminal
conduct. However, some of them, simply because of the operation of
sentencing laws on the books at the time, received substantial
sentences that are disproportionate to what they would receive today,"
Cole said. "Even the sentencing judges in many of these cases
expressed regret at the time at having to impose such harsh sentences."

To be eligible for consideration, inmates must be deemed nonviolent,
low-level offenders with no gang ties and must have spent at least 10
years behind bars and received a harsher punishment at the time of
sentencing than they would have gotten for the same crime today.

It's not clear how many of the tens of thousands of drug offenders
currently imprisoned would be viable candidates for
consideration.

The Obama administration has said it is working to correct the legacy
of an old sentencing structure that subjected black convicts to long
prison terms for crack cocaine convictions while giving far more
lenient sentences to those caught with powder cocaine, who were more
likely to be white.

The Fair Sentencing Act reduced that disparity and eliminated a
five-year mandatory minimum for first-time possession of crack and
officials are now turning their attention to identifying inmates who
received sentences under the old guidelines that now appear unduly
harsh.

Besides the clemency actions, the Justice Department has also taken
steps to scale back the use of harsh prison sentences for certain
drug-related

crimes. In August, Attorney General Eric Holder directed prosecutors
to not charge low-level, non-violent drug offenders with crimes that
impose mandatory minimum sentences.

President Barack Obama, who granted only one commutation in his first
term, in December cut short the sentences of eight prisoners he said
had been locked up too long for drug crimes.

The White House has said it is seeking additional good candidates to
consider for clemency, though spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that
the number of commutations "will depend entirely on the number of
worthy candidates."
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