CLINTON FREES WOMEN CALLED MINOR FIGURES IN DRUG-DEALING RINGS

WASHINGTON -- Kemba Smith loved and feared her boyfriend, Peter Hall,
too much to help the FBI capture him. Hall eventually was killed.
Smith got 25 years in prison for drug crimes about which she and her
supporters contend she knew very little.

President Clinton set her free yesterday, along with Dorothy Gaines,
whose 19-year sentence also underscored disparities in federally
mandated punishments for bit players in the war on drugs.

"I'm real happy. That's the only thing I asked for for Christmas,"
said Gaines' 16-year-old son, Phillip, who wrote Clinton seeking a
pardon for his mother. "I said the greatest gift you could send me was
to send me my mom. And he did it."

Gaines, 42, of Mobile, Ala., and Smith, 29, of Richmond, Va., were
among three prisoners whose sentences were commuted by Clinton
yesterday. The president also issued 59 pardons.

Gaines served seven years. Smith served six, and gave birth while in
prison to her son Armani, now 6. He is being raised by her parents,
Gus and Odessa Smith.

"His mom will be home tonight to tuck him in for the first time in his
life. He does understand that," Odessa Smith, her voice choking with
emotion, said in an interview. "We are so very grateful to President
Clinton for letting our daughter come home."

The Smiths made pursuing her release a national crusade. Gus Smith
said yesterday they will continue that fight on behalf of others
similarly incarcerated.

"We feel that we just can't stop. And I'm quite sure she doesn't want
to stop," he said. "It's just a bend in the road. For individuals who
have loved ones in the same predicament, I would tell them never give
up. If they give up, there is no hope. Hope is a good thing, and good
things don't die."

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which took on Smith's
case in 1996, said it was a dramatic example of the need to eliminate
mandatory minimum sentences established by Congress in the 1980s to
take down drug kingpins.

The problem, said fund director Elaine Jones, is that the kingpins are
able to cooperate with authorities and barter their freedom, while
lower-level players lack enough information to do that and typically
end up in prison for most of their lives.

Those offenders, Jones said, often are young, black or Latino, poor
and before the judge on a first offense.

"President Clinton has acted correctly," Jones said. "We hope Congress
will move forward to reform these overly harsh sentencing policies."

Smith and Gaines contend they never actually handled the crack cocaine
that put them behind bars.

Smith's role in the drug ring involved renting a storage space here, a
car or apartment there. In court papers, she said she got involved in
Hall's crack cocaine ring to keep him from beating her.

She became a fugitive with Hall in 1993 and surrendered in September
1994, a month before Hall was shot to death. She pleaded guilty to
drug conspiracy, laundering money and lying to federal
investigators.

Gaines' role involved accepting badly needed cash from her boyfriend,
who later testified that Gaines did not know the money came from drug
proceeds. Alabama charges against Gaines were dropped for lack of
physical evidence. She was convicted in U.S. District Court mainly on
the testimony of witnesses who cooperated in exchange for reduced sentences.