HER CONVICTION WAS FOR HAVING COCAINE.

Now Friends And Foes Alike Wonder... Does Life Sentence She's Serving Exceed
Her Crime?

There are 30 women serving life sentences in Kansas prisons. Twenty-nine of
them are convicted murderers or kidnappers. The other is Gloria Van Winkle.

Her crime was possessing one-sixteenth of an ounce of cocaine, equivalent to
less than two artificial sweetener packets.

She has been locked up since 1992, and she won't get to see the parole board
for the first time until 2007.

"I see murderers and child molesters walk out of here monthly," Van Winkle
said in a telephone interview.

As a three-time drug offender, Van Winkle received the harshest sentence
then possible under Kansas law - life with no chance of parole for 15 years.

If she had molested a baby or had wounded a store clerk during a robbery,
the maximum sentence she could have received would have been less.

"I deeply regret the drug abuse," Van Winkle wrote recently. "But how much
longer will I have to pay for things I've done years and years ago?"

Van Winkle is a rarity in Kansas - a nonviolent drug addict serving a life
sentence.

Only two other inmates in the state are serving life sentences for drugs.
One man was a thrice-convicted dealer, and according to police, the other
admitted that he was dealing, though he later denied it.

The law Van Winkle was sentenced under dates to the early 1970s. Kansas
changed it in 1993, the year after her conviction. The new sentencing
guidelines reserve the most severe punishments for repeat, violent criminals.

Today, Van Winkle would serve about 10 years in prison if convicted as a
three-time drug offender.

Even the man who prosecuted Van Winkle calls hers a "tragic case."

"I think 15 years is a hell of a long time for what she was convicted of,"
said Assistant Geary County Attorney Thomas Alongi.

Van Winkle's plight has attracted national attention. She was mentioned in a
New York Times article earlier this year about the rise of crack cocaine and
the get-tough crime legislation it spawned. And her case is featured on the
Web site of an organization called Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

A North Carolina man who read about Van Winkle has launched a letter-writing
campaign on her behalf. Robert Poole, who has sent 150 letters to Kansas
officials and legislators, said he's never done anything like that before.

"I'm not saying she didn't deserve some prison time," Poole said. "But it
seems so excessive. It's crazy."

The judge who sentenced Van Winkle said ethical rules prevent him from
commenting on her situation. But in comments made at the time, Geary County
District Judge George F. Scott expressed sympathy for her.

Although life was the only sentence he could impose under the law then in
place, Scott granted Van Winkle probation.

She got two chances at probation but stayed in a drug treatment program for
only a few days. Her probation was revoked.

"All reasonable attempts to place the defendant on probation have at this
time failed, and the court has no other choice but to return Miss Van Winkle
to the secretary of corrections for the service of the sentence previously
imposed," Scott said.

After the Kansas Supreme Court upheld her conviction, her case was appealed
to the federal courts.

In the federal appeal, attorney Ben Wood said the way the police focused on
Van Winkle amounted to outrageous government conduct.

She had been recently paroled when she ended up in a meeting with a paid
police informant and an undercover officer posing as a dealer at a motel in
Junction City, Kan.

The informant, a convicted thief, had given Van Winkle's name to police and
arranged the meeting with the undercover officer.

What happened in the room is in dispute, but Van Winkle was arrested for
possession of about $40 worth of cocaine.

In the appeal, Wood said that what the police did to Van Winkle was
analogous to authorities taking a child to a pedophile and encouraging him
to molest the child.

"Is there outrageous government conduct?" Wood asked in the appeal. "One
would think so."

But Van Winkle's appeal was denied on the federal level as well.

Although he said he has sympathy for Van Winkle's situation, prosecutor
Alongi said Van Winkle knew what she was doing and what the potential
consequences were.

Alongi said that the investigation that led to Van Winkle's last arrest was
prompted by reports that a cocaine-trafficking network was being set up in
the area.

"We wanted to stop it before it got going," he said.

Police unsuccessfully tried to get her to be an informant in exchange for a
lesser sentence. Authorities said she couldn't be trusted. Van Winkle says
she simply refused to be a snitch.

"Do you think in God's eyes I did the right thing?" she asked in a letter.
"I know if I had been an informant then I wouldn't cry myself to sleep
because I miss my kids so much."

Van Winkle's home for the foreseeable future is the Topeka Correctional
Facility, where she works as a porter and makes 40 cents an hour.

She lives for visits with her daughter, Jazzmine, and son, Jess. She gets to
see them about once a month. They live with her mother.

Despite the bleakness of her situation, Van Winkle tries to remain positive.
She does a lot of praying.

"I believe in myself and had to come to terms with who I am and who I will
never become," she wrote. "I'm glad I never physically hurt anyone by drunk
driving, or killing or robbing. That would hurt."

Although her latest case cannot be appealed any further, Wood said he
planned to study her two previous cases to see whether one of them can be
overturned.

If one of those convictions can be overturned, Van Winkle would no longer be
a three-time offender and could no longer be held under a life sentence.

Van Winkle's only other hope of early release lies with Gov. Bill Graves.

The law gives him the power to grant pardons to anyone convicted of a crime
in a state court. But the odds of that happening are long.

To reach Tony Rizzo, Johnson County court reporter, call (816) 234-7713