Pubdate: Thu, 31 Mar 2016
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2016 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Authors: Sari Horwitz and Ann E. Marimow

OBAMA GIVES CLEMENCY TO 61 MORE DRUG OFFENDERS

President Obama commuted the sentences of 61 inmates Wednesday, part 
of his ongoing effort to give relief to prisoners who were harshly 
sentenced in the nation's war on drugs.

More than one-third of the inmates were serving life sentences. Obama 
has granted clemency to 248 federal inmates, including Wednesday's 
commutations. White House officials said that Obama will continue 
granting clemency to inmates who meet certain criteria set out by the 
Justice Department throughout his last year. The president has vowed 
to change how the criminal justice system treats nonviolent drug offenders.

Since the Obama administration launched a high-profile clemency 
initiative, thousands more inmates have applied. Another 9,115 
clemency petitions from prisoners are still pending.

"The power to grant pardons and commutations . . . embodies the basic 
belief in our democracy that people deserve a second chance after 
having made a mistake in their lives that led to a conviction under 
our laws," Obama wrote in a letter to the 61 inmates whose sentences 
he commuted.

But sentencing reform advocates said that many more prisoners are 
disappointed they have not yet heard from the president about their petitions.

"Sixty-one grants, with over 9,000 petitions pending, is not an 
accomplishment to brag about," said Mark Osler, a law professor at 
the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota and an advocate for inmates 
petitioning for clemency. "I know some of those still waiting, men 
who were grievously over-sentenced, who have reformed themselves, and 
never had a record of violence. My heart breaks for them, as their 
hope for freedom - a hope created by the members of this 
administration-slips away."

The Justice Department's former pardon attorney, Deborah Leff, 
stepped down in January because she was frustrated by a lack of 
resources to process clemency petitions and recommend which ones 
should be sent to the White House. The new pardon attorney, longtime 
federal prosecutor Bob Zauzmer, said that his goal - whether he gets 
more needed resources or not - is "to look at every single petition 
that comes in and make sure an appropriate recommendation is made to 
the president."

The White House has argued that broader criminal justice reform is 
needed beyond the clemency program.

"Despite the progress we have made, it is important to remember that 
clemency is nearly always a tool of last resort that can help 
specific individuals, but does nothing to make our criminal justice 
system on the whole more fair and just," White House counsel W. Neil 
Eggleston said. "Clemency of individual cases alone cannot fix 
decades of overly punitive sentencing policies."

Among those granted clemency Wednesday was Byron Lamont McDade, who 
had an unusual advocate in his corner. The judge who sent McDade to 
prison for more than two decades for his role in a Washington-area 
cocaine conspiracy personally pleaded McDade's case for early release.

U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman said McDade's 27-year punishment 
was "disproportionate" to his crime, but that he had no choice but to 
impose the harsh prison term in 2002 because of then-mandatory 
sentencing guidelines. Over the years, the judge had urged the Bureau 
of Prisons and the White House to reduce McDade's sentence to 15 
years. He received no response until now.

"I have not lost hope that justice can still be done for Mr. McDade," 
Friedman wrote in February 2015 as part of McDade's petition to Obama.

Obama met Wednesday with seven former inmates who received clemency 
from either him or former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

"They're Americans who'd been serving time on the kind of outdated 
sentences that are clogging up our jails and burning through our tax 
dollars," Obama wrote on Facebook before meeting the inmates. "Simply 
put, their punishments didn't fit the crime."

The White House will hold an event called Life After Clemency on 
Thursday that will include former inmates and their attorneys, along 
with some prison reform advocates.

In spring 2014, then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. - who called 
mandatory-minimum drug sentences "draconian" - launched the clemency 
initiative to grant clemency to certain nonviolent drug offenders in 
federal prison.

To qualify, prisoners had to have served at least 10 years of their 
sentence and have no significant criminal history and no connection 
to gangs, cartels or organized crime. They must have demonstrated 
good conduct in prison. And they also must be inmates who probably 
would have received a "substantially lower sentence" if convicted of 
the same offense today.

In an emotional meeting late Wednesday afternoon, Holder met with one 
of the inmates freed under the clemency initiative, former Texas 
prisoner Sharanda Jones, and her attorney, Brittany Byrd, who worked 
for years to draw attention to Jones's case. Jones, 48, was sentenced 
to life in prison without parole for a single cocaine offense. She 
was a firsttime nonviolent offender, and she was granted clemency by 
Obama in December.

Holder had spent his last year as attorney general setting up the 
clemency initiative and studying the statistics of inmates who were 
given severe sentences during the nation's drug war. But he had never 
met an inmate whose life had been changed by his policy.

Holder walked into his lawfirm conference room where Jones was waiting.

"This is pretty amazing," he said, giving her a hug.

"I am so happy to be here," said Jones, who spent 17 years behind 
bars, leaving an 8-year-old daughter to grow up without her mother. 
"I feel like I won the lottery, and not just the lottery, but the 
powerball. Thank you so much. I am so grateful."

For nearly an hour, Holder listened to Jones talk about her years 
behind bars. He peppered her with questions about life after prison: 
What was it like when she first heard the president was granting her 
clemency? What was it like to come out of prison?

"It shouldn't have come down to this," Holder said, referring to 
Jones's many years behind bars and the life sentence she had faced. 
"Our system should have been better, more fair. When you look at what 
you did and what potentially you were facing, that's not justice."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom