ANDERSON SEEKS CLEMENCY FOR OFFENDERS

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson asked President Clinton on
Tuesday to grant clemency to 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 in office, 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.

But Paul Warner, U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah, said
Anderson should have chosen another case study.

"He's not a very good example for Rocky," Warner said. "This guy
didn't have to have a mandatory minimum [sentence.] It's due to his
own misconduct."

Stringfellow, who pleaded guilty to an LSD-related drug charge in
Colorado, had been excused from facing a minimum mandatory sentence
through an exception provided to defendants who give "substantial
assistance" to law enforcement, Warner explained.

But in 1993, while awaiting sentencing on the Colorado case,
Stringfellow absconded, Warner said.

Once he was apprehended later that year, Stringfellow was charged in
Utah with use of a false Social Security number and passport fraud
and lost his exception to a minimum mandatory sentence in the
Colorado case.

The Democratic mayor has said several times in the past year that
politicians trying to appear tough on drugs overemphasize punishment,
rather than treatment and prevention. He also canceled the Drug Abuse
Resistance Education (DARE) program in Salt Lake City schools,
claiming it was ineffective.

Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee released a letter
to Clinton calling for amnesty for up to 487 prisoners they said were
identified as first-time, nonviolent, cooperative offenders.

Anderson, called on the government to "commit our resources to
prevention programs that really work, to good public health
education, and to treatment programs."

Warner said he also supports drug treatment but added, "Strong and
aggressive prosecution is absolutely a necessary component of
succeeding" in the battle against illegal drugs. "Setting people free
without holding people accountable isn't going to get the job done."

The Associated Press contributed to this story.