Urge your members of Congress to oppose harsh new mandatory minimum sentences

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TO: People of faith and goodwill

FROM: Troy Dayton, associate director, Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative

DATE: 4/25/05

SUBJECT: Urge your members of Congress to oppose harsh new mandatory minimum sentences
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Your immediate help is needed to defeat harsh new mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses.

Please visit http://www.mandatorymadness.org to contact your members of Congress and ask them to oppose H.R. 1528. The whole process only takes a minute.

The result of this legislation is that more people will be spending more time in prison regardless of mitigating circumstances like role in the offense, addiction, attempts at rehabilitation, etc.

H.R. 1528 is a fast-moving sentencing bill that makes the advisory sentencing guidelines into a series of rigid mandatory minimum sentences. It also creates a whole new series of nonviolent drug crimes carrying long prison terms.

If this bill passes, there will be almost nothing left of judicial discretion in sentencing: it would eliminate virtually every basis ever relied on by a judge to depart downward.

The U.S. already leads the world in total number of people in prison and in prisoners per capita. The racial disparities in sentencing are already outrageous. This legislation would cause even greater racial disparities. The average federal prison sentence for a first-time drug offense exceeds the average sentence for sexual abuse, assault, manslaughter, or burglary!

They are making a bad situation even worse.

But not if people of faith and goodwill take action to stop them.

Please visit http://www.mandatorymadness.org to send a message to your members of Congress. It only takes a minute to send one of the pre-written e-mails urging them to stop this bill in its tracks.
(We encourage you to alter the letter to reflect your values, such as by quoting your religious denominations position or other passages from this alert.)

H.R. 1528 violates the policy positions of most major religious denominations. Mandatory minimum sentencing is opposed by:

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops National Council of Churches United Methodist Church Prison Fellowship Ministries Presbyterian Church (USA) Episcopal Church Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Progressive National Baptist Convention National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. National Missionary Baptist Convention Church of the Brethren Witness United Church of Christ American Baptist Churches in the USA Union for Reform Judaism Unitarian Universalist Association Mennonite Central Committee U.S., Washington Office American Friends Service Committee Church Women United

(Actual resolution language from these groups is available upon request from the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative: 301-933-7681 or http://www.idpi.us)

There are very few issues that have such broad support among religious groups. The moral choice is clear. Putting low-level non-violent drug offenders in prison longer than violent criminals violates our innate sense of fairness and does nothing to make our streets safer.

Two decades after mandatory minimums were enacted drugs are easier to get, purer, and cheaper. Crime, disease, drug trade related violence and overdose deaths have increased. Cruelty never succeeds in the end. Only drug policies grounded in the spirit of love can heal addictions and transform communities.

Please visit http://www.mandatorymadness.org TODAY to send a letter to the people who represent you in Washington, D.C., or call the capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.

More details about the bill appear below. Many thanks and blessings!

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If you like our work, please consider making a financial contribution to our efforts so that we can continue to organize people of faith and religious denominations behind more compassionate and less coercive drug policies. IDPI offers free books on drugs, drug policy, and drug treatment to those that donate. Please visit http://www.idpi.us/join/.

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Why is H.R. 1528 so bad? (Courtesy of Families Against Mandatory Minimums)

Among other things, it:

- Makes the federal sentencing guidelines a system of mandatory minimum sentences through a "Booker-fix" provision. - Creates new mandatory minimums that further erode judicial discretion.

- Eliminates the safety valve for low-level drug offenders. - Makes virtually every drug crime committed in urban areas subject to "drug free zone" penalties that carries a five-year mandatory minimum sentence. - Punishes defendants for the "relevant conduct" of co-conspirators that occurred BEFORE the defendant joined the conspiracy.

As written, H.R. 1528 would:

- Effectively make the federal sentencing guidelines a system of mandatory minimum sentences through a "Booker-fix" provision. This provision forbids judges from departing below the guideline sentence in all but a few cases.

- Make the sale of any quantity of any controlled substance
(including anything greater than five grams of marijuana) by a person older than
21 to a person younger than 18 subject to a ten-year federal mandatory minimum sentence.

-Create a new three-year mandatory minimum for parents who witness or learn about drug trafficking activities, targeting or even near their children, if they do not report it to law enforcement authorities within
24 hours and do not provide full assistance investigating, apprehending, and prosecuting the offender.

-Create a new 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for any parent committing a drug trafficking crime in or near the presence of their minor child.

- Mandate life in prison for persons 21 years or older convicted a second time of distributing drugs to a person under 18 or convicted a first time after a felony drug conviction has become final.

- Increase to five years the federal mandatory minimum sentence for the sale of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school, college, public library, drug treatment facility (or any place where drug treatment, including classes, are held), or private or public daycare facilities - in short, almost anywhere in cities across the U.S.

- Eliminate the federal "safety valve," granting it only when the government certifies that the defendant pled guilty to the most serious readily provable offense (the one that carries the longest sentence), and has "done everything possible to assist substantially in the investigation and prosecution of another person," and would prohibit the federal "safety-valve" in cases where drugs were distributed or possessed near a person under 18, where the defendant delayed his or her efforts to provide substantial assistance to the government, or provided false, misleading or incomplete information

* Eliminates the requirement that courts consider, among other factors, "the need for the sentence imposed . . . to provide the defendant with needed educational or vocational training, medical care, or other correctional treatment in the most effective manner."

* Prohibits courts from relying upon virtually every conceivable ground
(35) for a below-range sentence ("downward departure") -- except to calculate a guidelines range or impose a sentence at or above the bottom of that range.

* Prohibits courts from sentencing below the applicable guidelines range based on defendant cooperation except upon motion of the government.

* Sets forth new procedural requirements for courts intending to impose a below-range sentence (except in cases involving government cooperation motions or fast-track dispositions). Courts must provide 20 days' advance notice, setting forth in detail the legal rationale for the sentence. Court must permit briefs and conduct evidentiary hearings, at which information regarding defendants who have benefited from government-initiated leniency is not admissible. Below-range sentences must be supported by clear and convincing evidence, and the court must prepare a detailed statement of reasons justifying the sentence.

* Prohibits courts from delegating to prosecutors certain reporting requirements under the PROTECT Act.
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Sharing by: Brenda Pitts Bennett
http://www.geocities.com/copbrutality
bbbennett [at] cebridge.net