PRESIDENT PARDONS 59, FREES 3; NO WORD ON PELTIER

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- President Clinton freed three federal prisoners
Friday and granted Christmastime pardons to 59 others, including Dan
Rostenkowski, a once-powerful congressman convicted of misusing
taxpayer money.

Others pardoned in what the White House described as the first batch
of clemency decisions by the president as he prepares to leave
office, included:

Archie Schaffer III, a chicken company executive convicted as a
result of the investigation of former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy.

Rick Hendrick III, a NASCAR team owner, banished from auto racing for
a year after being sentenced for bribery and mail fraud.

Clinton also commuted the sentences of three prisoners to time
served: former Missouri House Speaker Bob F. Griffin, who was serving
time for bribery and mail fraud, and two women who received long
terms under federal drug sentencing guidelines.

White House officials have said Clinton may issue additional pardons
in coming weeks. Among those seeking clemency are Whitewater figure
Susan McDougal, former Wall Street financier Michael Milken and
Leonard Peltier, the Indian activist convicted of killing two FBI
agents.

Clinton's pardon of Rostenkowski, 72, was unexpected. "I'm greatly
appreciative," he said outside his Chicago home Friday.

Rostenkowski pleaded guilty to two counts of misusing public funds in
1996 and served time in a minimum-security prison in Wisconsin. He
was released from a halfway house in October 1997 after 451 days in
federal custody.

He was not even eligible to request a pardon through the Justice
Department, which requires that a person wait at least five years
after completing a sentence before filing a pardon application.
However, Justice Department spokeswoman Chris Watney said the
Constitution gives the president broad authority to grant pardons.

Howard Pearl, a Chicago attorney who represented Rostenkowski during
his criminal case, declined to say who interceded with the White
House on Rostenkowski's behalf.

The president's pardon of Schaffer, an executive of Tyson Foods Inc.,
a poultry producer in Springdale, Ark., was not as surprising.

He was convicted in June 1998 of illegally trying to influence Espy,
then the agriculture secretary, by inviting him to a Tyson party in
Russellville, Ark, in 1993. He was convicted of violating a
93-year-old law that prohibits bribing meat inspectors.

"I would have preferred to have been vindicated by the judicial
system," Schaffer said in a telephone interview. "We were prepared to
continue battling that, but we're pleased with this outcome as well."

Called out of a meeting at Tyson Foods to learn of Clinton's action,
he said getting a pardon was a fitting political solution because he
remains "convinced that politics was at the bottom of this ordeal
from the outset."

In a prepared statement, Tyson said company officials believed in
Schaffer's "innocence from the very beginning of his long, arduous
ordeal."

Schaffer, who has known Clinton for nearly 30 years, was sentenced in
September to a year and a day in prison for trying to influence Espy
illegally. But the U.S. Appeals Court of the District of Columbia
ruled Dec. 14 that Schaffer could remain free pending appeals.

Espy, the target of independent counsel Donald Smaltz's six-year, $23
million investigation, was acquitted in December 1998.

White House press secretary Jake Siewert said the trial judge in
Schaffer's case concluded that there was insufficient evidence to
support the conviction, and that the law required him to impose a
sentence that was unjust. "The president believes that what happened
here was wrong," Siewert said.

Arkansas' top elected officials, including Republican Sen. Tim
Hutchinson, all pleaded with Clinton to give clemency to Schaffer,
who is a nephew of Dale Bumpers, a Democratic U.S. senator and former
Arkansas governor.

Two women freed

The three prisoners freed included two women who got entangled in the
drug crimes of others, and ended up being subjects of a national
campaign by women's groups and opponents of mandatory minimum prison
sentences.

One is Kemba Smith, 28, of Richmond, Va., who was sentenced to 24
years and six months in prison with no chance of parole for helping
her boyfriend, Peter Hall, head of a violent drug ring.

The other is Dorothy Gaines, 42, of Mobile, Ala., who received 19
years, seven months for her low-level role in a local drug ring. The
men who ran the ring received more lenient sentences.

Gaines, a first-time offender, was speechless Friday afternoon when
she learned that she will gain her freedom. "I said, 'Dorothy, go
pack!'" said her lawyer, Tracy Hubbard. "And there was nothing, just
silence. I said, 'Dorothy, go pack!' and still nothing." Then Gaines
handed the phone to another inmate and started crying and screaming.
Leaving her lawyer on the line, she ran to the prison bathroom
sobbing.

"We're really thrilled about the pardons of Dorothy Gaines and Kemba
Smith, but we also are hoping that this is just the beginning," said
Laura Sager, executive director of Families Against Mandatory
Minimums. "We hope that President Clinton, who has shown such
integrity and compassion in releasing these women, will show the same
compassion with others who are clearly not drug kingpins, and let
them go as well," she said.

Before Friday, Clinton had granted 196 pardons and 22 commutations.

Clemency is an umbrella term meaning a merciful or lenient act by a
judge, governor or president. A commutation reduces a criminal
penalty, such as shortening a prison term. A pardon releases a person
from the punishment of a crime. States have different criteria for
restoring the individual rights of those granted presidential
pardons, the Justice Department said.