As they sit in federal prisons, separated from their families for years, freedom has seemed a distant dream for thousands of low-level drug offenders ordered locked up for decades, even though they’d face lesser sentences if convicted of the same crimes today.
On Tuesday, in what could be the start of a flood of clemency grants in his final two years in office, President Barack Obama commuted 22 of prisoners’ sentences to time served, effective July 28.
Eight of those granted clemency faced life sentences, others terms of 20 years or more, mainly for selling cocaine, crack cocaine or methamphetamine.
The action came nearly a year after the administration announced that Obama would grant clemency to nonviolent federal offenders who’ve served 10 years or more. At the time, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said that about 12 or 13 percent of the 219,000 inmates in the nation’s overcrowded prisons might be considered for clemency.
Cole called for private attorneys to volunteer their service to assist in the effort, and an estimated 1,500 lawyers did, helping set up Tuesday’s action.
Cynthia Roseberry, manager of the Clemency Project 2014, said she “cannot express in stronger terms how gratifying it is to see today’s grants of clemency by the White House, “ including in cases developed by attorneys working as volunteers.
“At the project, I hear every day from prisoners and their loved ones who for the first time in many years have hope,” she said. “For far too long, this nation went down the road of locking up non-violent offenders and throwing away the keys, without any regard for the value of these people and the damage that mass incarceration does to families, communities and to our entire society.”
“It is my fervent hope that what we have seen today is only the beginning and that the administration will make the exercise of its clemency power ever more robust.”
Under Attorney General Eric Holder, the Justice Department also has taken numerous steps to ease prosecution of low-level drug offenders and limit their punishment. Mandatory sentences for many drug offenses were reduced in 2010 under the Fair Sentencing Act.
Among those benefiting from Tuesday’s commutations were:
--Francis Darrell Hayden of Loretto, Ky., who got life in prison in 2002 for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 1,000 or more marijuana plants, or 1,000 or more kilograms of marijuana, a drug since legalized in four states and the District of Columbia.
--Samual Pasqual Edmondson of Junction City, Kan., who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1997 for conspiring to possess methamphetamine.
--Tracy Lynn Pett of Shelby, N.C., sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2006 for conspiring to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and cocaine base, a sentence that was reduced by three years in 2008.
--Amada Garcia of Fresno, Ca., sentenced in 2001 to 20 years in prison for conspiring to possess with the intent to distribute methamphetamine.
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