S.L. MAYOR HELPED UTAH WIN PRESIDENTIAL CLEMENCY

The Salt Lake County parents of a prisoner whose sentence was
commuted were at the airport Sunday night to express thanks to the
man they say was most responsible for their son's newfound freedom.

Burton and Carol Stringfellow say more than anybody else, Salt Lake
City Mayor Rocky Anderson fought to get their son's 15-year drug
sentence reduced.

"It's been the fulfillment of an impossible dream," said Burton
Stringfellow, who greeted Anderson as the mayor returned from a
Washington, D.C., lobbying effort. "It's been such a heavy burden
lifted, and it was Rocky who stood up for Cory as if he was his own
son."

Cory Stringfellow, 31, was among 35 inmates whose prison sentences
were commuted by former President Clinton during his last hours in
office.

Both Utah senators had lobbied on his behalf since the offense was
nonviolent and occurred in Stringfellow's youth.

But for three years, the Stringfellows say, it was Anderson who waged
a personal, and sometimes lonely, crusade against what they describe
as unreasonably long prison terms for drug offenders.

That campaign continued last week as Anderson went to Washington,
D.C., and publicly asked Clinton to grant clemency for Stringfellow
and what might be hundreds of nonviolent drug offenders.

At a Washington news conference, Anderson said federal sentencing
guidelines require severe punishments for minor drug violations. In a
prepared statement, Anderson said presidential clemency could help to
change those guidelines. According to Anderson's statement, "Many
politicians excuse their earlier use of drugs as 'youthful
indiscretions' --yet thousands of individual lives and families have
been destroyed for making similar mistakes, and getting caught."

Anderson, who has publicly taken the war on drugs to task in his
first year as mayor, was the main speaker at a news conference called
by clergy, policy groups and parents of nonviolent drug offenders.

On Tuesday, he specifically called for a pardon for Utah resident
Cory Stringfellow, who was sentenced to more than 15 years in a
federal penitentiary for drug crimes he committed in his teens and
early 20s. Anderson said that Stringfellow has more than paid his
debt to society by serving 5 years in prison, completing a drug
program and earning a master's degree.

The Stringfellows, however, do not want anyone to think they are soft
on crime. "We believe that Cory deserved to be punished and Cory
believed that he should be punished," Stringfellow said. "Our issue
is . . . the amount of punishment."