BROTHER'S DRUG SENTENCE IGNITED WOMAN'S CRUSADE

D.C. Group Helps Win Relaxed Penalties

Julie Stewart was sitting at her desk at a think tank in the District
17 years ago when her telephone rang. It was her brother calling to
say he had been busted for growing marijuana.

"How stupid," she recalled thinking. She figured he would get off
with a relatively light punishment -- perhaps a little jail time,
maybe probation. After all, she reasoned, he had no record. And it
was "only" marijuana.

Instead, for cultivating 365 six-inch marijuana plants, Stewart's
brother received five years in federal prison, a sentence Stewart
considered harsh.

"I was astounded," said Stewart, 51, of Chevy Chase. "We are putting
people in prison with sentence lengths that used to be reserved for
the most violent offenders."

That was Stewart's introduction to the nation's mandatory minimum
sentencing laws, which dictated how much time her brother would spend
behind bars. Anguish over that sentence led her to establish Families
Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), one of several advocacy groups
credited with persuading the U.S. Sentencing Commission recently to
relax the penalties prescribed for some crack cocaine offenses.

Stewart testified last week before the commission, which sets
guidelines for sentencing defendants in federal court. Joined by
people from as far as Texas and Kansas who have been affected by
mandatory minimums, she urged members to make the new rules
retroactive so that thousands of drug offenders would qualify for
release from federal prison.

Stewart's advocacy began in 1991 shortly after her brother, Jeff, was
sentenced. She enlisted two Capitol Hill lawyer friends to help her
find other people affected by mandatory sentences. She organized a
meeting and invited people to share their experiences. They came from
as far away as Florida and New Hampshire.

"I remember sitting there as we each went around the room, listening
to people say, 'My son got 17 years for his first offense' and 'My
son got 24 years for his first offense,' " Stewart said. "I started
to think my brother's five years was a bargain."

In its early days, said Stewart, the goal of FAMM was to gather
information on as many egregious examples as possible. She found one
nearby in Prince George's County.

Derrick Curry was a 19-year-old college student when he was caught
with more than 50 grams of crack cocaine and sentenced to 19 1/2
years in federal prison for conspiracy to distribute the drug.

Mandatory minimums came out of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which
was pushed by then-House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill (D-Mass.) as
Boston and the nation's capital reeled over the cocaine overdose
death of University of Maryland basketball star and Celtics top draft
pick Len Bias. The law established a tougher standard for defendants
convicted of crack vs. powder cocaine.

Civil rights groups and some legal experts have long argued that the
mandatory minimums unfairly target black men, who statistics showed
were more likely to be in possession of the less costly crack form of
cocaine than were white drug users.

Arthur Curry, Derrick's father, met Stewart at one of her meetings
after his son was arrested. He said she taught him how to advocate
for his son, now 37.

"Julie attended the trial with me and my family, and she was at the
sentencing," said Curry, a former Upper Marlboro resident and
longtime educator who now lives in North Carolina. "I had absolutely
no experience. I didn't know what to expect. Just to have someone
there who could give me information . . . was so important. We are
forever grateful for Julie and FAMM and their intervention in our lives."

Indeed, Arthur Curry credits Stewart and her organization for helping
him put the spotlight on his son's case. In 2001, eight years after
he entered a federal prison, Derrick Curry was released in an
eleventh-hour pardon by then-President Clinton before leaving office.

That Stewart would end up fighting for justice for thousands of men
and women, some she will never meet, is not surprising, friends said.
They describe the mother of two young girls as deeply committed to
her cause and say she has spent countless hours advising and
comforting families affected by mandatory minimums.

"For her and so many who get involved in this issue, it starts with
your loved one, but then you meet so many people, and you realize it
could be anyone's loved one that this could happen to," said FAMM
colleague Monica Pratt. "It makes you feel compassion and anger about
the ways these laws affect people."

A self-described libertarian, Stewart said she believes lawbreakers
should face penalties. But the time, she said, should fit the crime.

"I think it's easy for members of Congress to forget how long 10
years is," Stewart said. "Sentences have gotten so inflated in the
last 20 years that we no longer think about what that means to the
person serving the sentence or their family."

Besides fighting to get mandatory minimums repealed, FAMM also works
to change some states' sentencing laws and serves as a resource for
organizations across the country.

"Julie is a very effective advocate, and she has a high degree of
credibility," said Judge William W. Wilkins of the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 4th Circuit, the first chairman of the U.S.
Sentencing Commission. "She always has her facts down, and she firmly
believes in what she is doing."

Stewart's work and that of her colleagues have led to some victories
for FAMM. In 1991, Stewart went to work on Michigan's "650 lifer
law," which required life sentences for anyone convicted of crimes
involving 650 grams or more of cocaine or heroin.

FAMM hired someone to work against the Michigan law, and in 1998, the
law was changed to reduce the mandatory sentence from life to 15 or
20 years. Michigan later repealed most of its mandatory minimum drug
sentences, Stewart said.

Stewart said her goal is to see the end of such laws across the
nation, just as similar laws were repealed 40 years ago. In the 1950s
and 1960s, she said, drug offenders faced mandatory minimum sentences
under the Boggs Act of 1951, named for its sponsor, then-Rep. Hale
Boggs (D-La.). The law was repealed by Congress in 1973 after it
became clear the sentences served no deterrent value, she said.

"That reminds us that it can be done and the pendulum will swing back
to more reasonable sentencing," Stewart said of the Boggs Act. "I
have to remain optimistic, or else I would close up shop."