Pubdate: Thu, 31 Mar 2016
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
Copyright: 2016 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc
Contact:  http://www.philly.com/inquirer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/340
Authors: Sari Horwitz and Ann E. Marimow, Washington Post

EARLY RELEASE FOR 61 DRUG OFFENDERS

Move Is Part of Obama's Bid to Revisit Harsh Sentences in War on Drugs.

WASHINGTON - 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. An additional 9,115 
clemency petitions from prisoners are 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. The judge who sent him 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 that 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."

In spring 2014, then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. - who called 
mandatory-minimum drug sentences "draconian" - launched the clemency 
initiative for 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.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom