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Neal Peirce Column

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Jurisdiction: Federal Government, State Government
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Policy Area: Criminal Justice/Prisons
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NEAL PEIRCE COLUMN
February 19, 2001

WHERE CLINTON'S PARDONS SHOULD HAVE GONE

By Neal R. Peirce

WASHINGTON -- Almost as troublesome as the last-minute pardons
President Clinton decided to grant rich, powerful and connected figures
like financier Mark Rich are questions about the pardons he failed to
issue to hundreds of very ordinary people caught in the legal traps of
our misguided "war on drugs."

The number of Americans incarcerated for drug offenses has
spiralled upward tenfold since 1980. Some 500,000 are now held --
80,000 in federal prisons. Many are serving extremely long sentences --
20, 25 years, life -- with no chance of parole.

Under the mandatory sentences enacted by Congress in 1988,
federal drug offenders typically serve longer than persons convicted of
rape, assault or robbery -- often longer than murderers.
Bill Clinton knew all this. In the same "Rolling Stone"
interview (January edition) in which he supported decriminalizing
possession of small amounts of marijuana, he also acknowledged that many drug sentences "are too long for nonviolent offenders." The great
majority of federal judges, he noted, now want to do away with mandatory
sentences.

Additionally, an intensive campaign was launched to persuade
Clinton to grant clemency to nonviolent drug offenders -- small-time
users or carriers -- who have ended up serving decades-long sentences
under the mandatory federal sentencing guidelines.

In the final weeks of his term, Clinton received an eloquent
plea from 675 leading clergy of all denominations. Their proposal: that
he commute the sentences of virtually all low-level, nonviolent drug
offenders who'd already served five years of their terms.
Not only are the sentences excessive, the clergy noted, but
thousands of the offenders are parents whose children are deeply hurt by
the separations.

A prisoners' rights group, Families Against Mandatory Minimums,
even supplied Clinton with a list of the nearly 500 prisoners who would
been released had they been convicted following (and not before) a 1994
"safety valve" law that allows judges to be more lenient on first-time
offenders.

So what did Clinton decide?
In his final day in office, following up on a handful of earlier
drug case pardons, he included 22 drug offenders in his final pardon
list.

What a dismal showing, when one considers that Clinton could
legitimately have pardoned hundreds, ideally thousands --reuniting
families, emptying prison cells, saving public treasure.

Even worse, it turns out that one of the lucky 22 who received a
presidential commutation looks more like a drug kingpin than innocent
victim. His name: Carlos Vignali Jr., a major player in a Twin Cities
cocaine ring before his 1994 conviction and 15-year sentence for a major
interstate cocaine shipment. Vignali's father, Minnesota newspapers are
reporting, donated $160,000 to Democratic officeholders after his son
went on trial.

Says a disappointed Eric Sterling, president of the Criminal
Justice Policy Foundation, which worked with the clergy on their appeal:
"We were hoping to elevate the thinking of the president about
these issues. To reflect on the appropriate and merciful and just use
of the pardoning power. To leave a just legacy. It's evident he didn't
care about that."

Had Clinton worked to pardon several hundred deserving minor
drug offenders, Sterling suggests, he would have received press
accolades.

Even more important, adds Sterling, "It would have been an
extremely powerful policy message to the new president -- and Congress
-- that drug sentences are an issue that needs serious attention."
Without that, one can at least detect other signs of a reform
tide sweeping in. George W. Bush hardly championed reduced sentences
for anything as governor of Texas. Yet if the new administration has its
ears open at all, it will hear some of its friends urging radically new
drug policy.

Seven Republican governors, reports stateline.org, the on-line
news service, are now vocally supporting less jail time and more
treatment, supervision and community service for drug offenders. They
are Govs. George Pataki (N.Y.), Gary Johnson (N.M.), Jim Geringer
(Wyo.), Mike Leavitt (Utah), Dirk Thorne (Idaho), Frank Keating (Okla.)
and Mike Huckabee (Ark.).

The guiding concerns: prisons crowded with inmates who have
chronic alcohol or drug problems. The high costs of prisons -- to build
them, to maintain them. And the blatant failure of nearly three decades
of a furious, punitive war on drugs.

"It makes more sense to treat people with a drug problem rather
than simply incarcerating them and putting them in a place where their
problems are not met," Arkansas' Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister,
said in his State of the State address last month.

Also dying an overdue death: the idea that cutting off foreign
drug supply will happen, or make a difference. President Bush's
compadre, Mexican President Vicente Fox, tells the truth here: "(The
United States) has shown a grand inability to reduce drug consumption.
It has shown a grand inability to prevent drugs from entering."

Bottom line: America's entire anti-drug strategy needs
revamping. Clinton had a chance to start with the humblest victims. He
failed. But the rationale for the status quo is crumbling.

Contact Info: Neal Peirce; npeirce@citistates.com
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Source: Neal Peirce Column; Washington Post Newspaper