FREED DRUG CONVICT LOBBIES TO CHANGE FEDERAL SENTENCING RULES

WASHINGTON - Dorothy Gaines tasted freedom just before Christmas, when
President Clinton commuted her 19-year sentence for conspiracy to sell cocaine.

On Wednesday, the Mobile woman joined the ranks of amateur lobbyists here,
buttonholing members of Congress to change tough mandatory minimum drug
sentencing laws that have swelled the federal prison population.

"I can't believe I'm here," she said, wearing a Sunday-best dress and
carrying informational packets provided by Families Against Mandatory
Minimums, an advocacy group. "This was my dream when I was incarcerated, to
be able to come here and do this."

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Gaines, 42, was a mother of two minor children and had no felony record
when she went on trial in Mobile in July 1994. Prosecutors presented no
evidence against her other than the testimony of admitted drug dealers who
cooperated to get their sentences cut.

But Gaines, who has always maintained her innocence, was convicted and
given 19 years under federal sentencing guidelines for the amount of drugs
she was accused of helping to sell. The men who testified against her - all
admitted drug dealers, and some with lengthy criminal records - got far
less time.

Gaines began serving her sentence a few months later, first in the county
jail, then in federal women's prisons in Connecticut and Florida.

As her years of incarceration passed, her case eventually received
considerable publicity, first in the Mobile Register, then nationally
through magazine stories and public radio and TV programs.

Clinton commuted Gaines' sentence on the morning of Dec. 22. By late that
afternoon, she had been released from federal prison in Marianna, Fla., and
come home to Mobile.

Since then, she has been profiled in People magazine, but she also has
struggled to readjust to free life. She is without full-time employment or
a car and is living with her older daughter, Natasha, until she can get her
own place.

Families Against Mandatory Minimums brought Gaines and 11 other recently
released inmates to Washington this week to lobby and speak on the
sentencing issue.

Gaines flew from Mobile to Washington on Tuesday with her 17-year-old
daughter Chara. It was Chara's first flight. All of Dorothy Gaines' other
flights had been as a prisoner, wearing handcuffs.

They attended an FAMM banquet Tuesday night, then Wednesday visited the
offices of Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.; Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.; and
Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich. Gaines is scheduled to be part of a panel
discussion at Georgetown University today.

FAMM's central lobbying message is that Congress should give federal judges
discretion in drug cases.

More than 79,000 people are in federal prisons for drug offenses, up 38
percent since mandatory minimum sentences were introduced in 1986.

"A lot of the people who are in prison don't need to be there for the
length of time they're serving," said Julie Stewart, FAMM president. "The
punishment needs to fit the crime."

Conyers, who appeared at a news conference Wednesday with Gaines and the
other former inmates, said President Bush has promised to take a fresh look
at mandatory-minimum sentences.

Gaines planned to return to Mobile on Friday. She said she hopes to start a
Mobile chapter of FAMM.

Mobile and the rest of southwest Alabama have had an unusually large number
of federal drug prosecutions involving black defendants who end up with
long sentences, the Register found in a 1997 series of articles that looked
at Gaines' case and federal sentencing.