BEWARE OF GOV. GILMORE'S SABRE RATTLING

Don't Compound Mandatory-Sentencing Mistakes, Virginia

WHY DOES the toughest U.S. drug czar ever, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, oppose Gov.
Jim Gilmore's SABRE plan (Substance Abuse Reduction Effort), calling it
"ill-conceived and hastily developed?"

Maybe it's because of Amy Pofahl. This striking blonde recently appeared in
Glamour Magazine, not because of her beauty, but because she is a federal
inmate serving 24 years for drug crimes committed by her estranged husband.

Pofahl and Kemba Smith, a Richmond debutante serving 24 years for her former
boyfriend's crimes, are not the only ones trapped in the web of federal
mandatory minimum sentencing that brings us these unlikely "kingpins." Women
are the fastest-growing segment of America's enormous drug prisoner
population.

Mandatory-sentencing laws have a history of passage during frenzied
election-year campaigns. They were passed, without any deliberation, by
Congress in the critical election years of 1984, 1986 and 1988. The
committee meetings resembled poker games with ever-higher penalties offered,
like so many chips, by legislators wishing to appear tough on crime and
drugs.

When Nelson Rockefeller ran for president, he pushed through his infamous
drug laws which have been a burden to New York taxpayers ever since.

In the 1950s, the Boggs Act instituted mandatory sentences for drugs. That
law was repealed within 20 years. The fact that it didn't stop drugs, but
filled prisons with nonviolent offenders and forced judges to be inflexible,
seems lost on politicians of the '90s.

When a charge carries mandatory sentencing, the judge can't consider
anything. A slight change in the offense cited can mean an arbitrary
difference of five or 10 years in jail. Prosecutors use this to force anyone
with even the slightest knowledge to turn "rat."

Mothers and daughters who "should have known" are fair game for conspiracy
charges that carry the same penalty as actually committing the crime. Slick
drug dealers get much lighter sentencing by using those under them as
bargaining chips. That's why so many girlfriends and wives, like Amy and
Kemba, are behind bars.

Judges often protest as they are forced to condemn seemingly innocent family
members or acquaintances. All we get for our money is a rubber stamp, not
the mature wisdom that aggressive prosecutors with political ambitions often
lack. Many senior federal judges have refused to handle drug cases in an
effort to wash their hands of the obvious injustices.

Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist has called mandatory minimum
sentencing the "law of unintended consequence." Such laws have not reduced
the flow of drugs or succeeded in locking away major or even midlevel
dealers, but they have filled prisons.

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons publication "Quick Facts," the
average drug convict is serving an 82.2-month sentence, while a manslaughter
con is getting 26.8 months.

Do we in the Old Dominion want to repeat the mistakes made in the recent
past by other states and the federal government, even as they try to correct
them? Should marijuana growers spend more time in prison than those guilty
of murder, armed robbery or rape, as Gilmore is proposing?

It will be hard to find enough time to ask these questions, much less
examine the answers with any degree of care, before the election or during
the next whirlwind legislative session of the Virginia General Assembly.

To rattle his SABRE, Gilmore wants $60 million for prisons and snitches. Not
one cent will be spent to catch the three out of four criminals who are
currently getting away with violent acts.

This should alarm citizens. That ultra-tough Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey
sounds the warning is evidence of how extreme the proposal is.

LENNICE WERTH of Crewe is director of Virginians Against Drug Violence.