FREED WOMEN UNDERSCORE DISPARITIES IN SENTENCING

WASHINGTON -- In the time it takes to earn a bachelor's degree, Kemba
Smith went from college student to battered woman on the lam with a
drug-dealing man.

She 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 Friday, 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 the
pardon. "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 on
Friday. The president also issued 59 pardons to various other
individuals.

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. "We are so very grateful to President Clinton for
letting our daughter come home."

The Smiths made pursuing Kemba's release a national crusade. Gus Smith
said Friday 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, fund director Elaine Jones said, 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 Hispanic, poor
and before the judge on a first-time offense.

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