AFTER EIGHT YEARS, UNABLE TO WALK OUT OF PRISON, BUT FREE

Stormville, N.Y. Terrence Stevens is not your run-of-the-mill criminal
given a break by a powerful politician. He may have looked every bit the
coddled convict as he rode away from the Green Haven Correctional Facility
on Wednesday morning in a stretch Navigator S.U.V. that felt a few
luxurious feet longer than the arm of the law. But Terrence Stevens is no
Marc Rich.

Marc Rich, the fugitive financier, was pardoned by President Clinton with
the backing of powerful lawyers and moneyed interests. Mr. Stevens, a
relatively obscure prisoner, was convicted in 1992 of possession of five
ounces of cocaine and had served 8 years of his 15-years-to-life sentence.
He was granted clemency by Gov. George E. Pataki because he is nearly
paralyzed.

If the outrage of the Rich case is that exceptions were made, the outrage
of the Stevens case is that an exception was needed.

The Rockefeller-era drug laws under which Mr. Stevens, 34, was sentenced
require tough sentences even for nonviolent crimes involving small
quantities of drugs. Mr. Stevens came to symbolize the rigidity of the
laws, as the muscular dystrophy he had contracted as a boy left his limbs
limp and nearly useless, his body slumping to the left and his breathing
labored.

Mr. Stevens's case became a rallying point for opposition to the drug laws
after The New York Times reported his story last year. Even though Mr.
Stevens had no prior drug convictions, the laws compelled Judge John V.
Rogowski of Erie County to impose a sentence equal to the minimum sentence
for murder and kidnapping. The laws do not "permit for the proper relief
that should be given a human being," the judge, now retired, said in an
interview last year. Judge Jerome W. Marks, a retired Manhattan Supreme
Court justice, wrote Mr. Stevens's clemency petition.

There are indications, including a major proposal last month by Governor
Pataki, that an overhaul of the long-debated laws is coming. Relief for Mr.
Stevens arrived on a gray morning when the white Navigator, rented by
relatives and friends, pulled even with the endless concrete prison wall
and eight of them climbed out.

"You're going home T!" Mr. Stevens's brother Kelsey said, stopping
Terrence's wheelchair and leaning down to hug his big brother's head.

"It's a beautiful morning," Terrence Stevens said.

In prison, Mr. Stevens lived in a special unit for handicapped prisoners,
relying on the kindness of convicts to be dressed, put on and off the
toilet and fed. Outside the prison wall, Mr. Stevens's family took over.

Three or four men tried to engineer Mr. Stevens from his wheelchair to the
plush Navigator seat. "Put my arm around your neck," Mr. Stevens told one
of them. "Put my butt on the seat." Two men tried to lift him from his
chair while a third struggled to pull him into the car.

"I got him," his cousin, Troy Sutton, said, clearing away the others. "T
ain't going anywhere." With that, Mr. Sutton wrapped his arms around his
cousin, lifted him cleanly out of his chair and placed him in the idling
car. "It's a beautiful morning," Mr. Stevens said again. As the car rolled
away, the newly free man muttered to no one in particular, "cruel and unusual."

On the ride from New York City to retrieve Mr. Stevens, the car was alive
with banter and rap music. Mr. Stevens's mother, Regina, a school cafeteria
worker, downed a small drink from the car's supply, raised a glass and
declared: "To Terrence. I'm ready!"

On the ride back to Harlem, the car was quieter. Looking sharp in a new
leather jacket, a blue sweater and crisp jeans he had been given by his
family, the former prisoner sat ringed by relatives who seemed thrilled
just to look at him.

Ms. Stevens at one point found words that seemed to speak for everyone:
"Free at last, thank God almighty, he's free at last."

When Mr. Stevens arrived at his grandmother's apartment building, a small
crowd gathered. "Terrence, Lord have mercy!" squealed his aunt, Christine
Sutton. Inside, celebrants alternately laughed and philosophized. "Whatever
life deals us," said Mr. Stevens's friend James Robinson, a building
cleaner, "we have to play it out."

Mr. Stevens has played out his prison sentence. "It feels strange," he said
on Friday. "The kids and the family walking around. The TV access. The
phone ringing. Staying up later than 10 o'clock."

But part of him was still on the other side of the prison wall. "I left a
lot of people behind," he said.