BUSH SHOULD COMMUTE SENTENCE OF CLARENCE AARON

The San Diego Union Tribune reported last Sunday on the effort to
petition President Bush to commute the sentence of former Rep. Randy
"Duke" Cunningham, who pleaded guilty in 2005 to accepting some $2.4
million in bribes. The president has the constitutional power to
pardon federal offenders by wiping clean their prison records for
sentences served or by commuting the sentences of inmates in federal
prison.

Before Bush even considers such a request, he ought to take a long
look at the thousands of petitions for a presidential pardon filed by
inmates who have never served in elective office. He could start with
the case file of Clarence Aaron, who at age 23 in 1992, while a
student at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., made the criminal
decision to introduce two drug dealers, which resulted in a
transaction involving 9 kilograms of cocaine.

Aaron broke the law, and the fitting consequence for that is a serious
prison stay. But because Aaron was a newbie to the drug trade and did
not have the experience with the criminal-justice system that would
have led him to testify against the trade kingpins in exchange for a
lighter sentence, and because his five co-conspirators knew enough to
fess up and turn on him while he wrongly and stupidly denied any
guilt, Aaron was handed the longest sentence in the group. He was a
first-time nonviolent drug offender - but a judge sentenced him to
life without parole.

Having entered prison as a young man, he will die there unless a
president pardons him.

There is something rotten to the core in a justice system that puts a
twentysomething first-time nonviolent offender away for life, while
meting out lighter sentences for career criminals who know how to game
the system. Life without parole also is the same sentence imposed on
FBI-agent-turned-Russian-spy Robert Hanssen, except that it is worse
for Aaron, who was sentenced in 1992. Hanssen was arrested at age 56.

It turns out Aaron's most heinous offense was not the drug deal, but
not having spent years getting arrested and learning how to roll
through the criminal justice machine.

I know that I will hear from law-and-order types who will argue that
all drug dealers should go away for life. I do not think many would
feel so sanguine about such a term for a white college student. (Aaron
is black.) As it is, the world is not a safer place with Aaron behind
bars. It is a poorer territory that throws away people because of a
warped sentencing formula that ensnares the unwitting and spits out
the truly dangerous.

Aaron, now 39, has admitted his wrongdoing and taken responsibility
for the actions that put him behind bars. He has a clean prison
record. In 2005, two wardens recommended that he be moved to a
lower-security facility.

Bush has a pretty stingy record when it comes to granting presidential
pardons and commutations. He has granted a mere 163 pardons - a figure
far lower than President Ronald Reagan's 406 back when the federal
prison population was much smaller.

No doubt, President Bill Clinton's sleazy fire-sale pardons on his way
out of the office - which were roundly and deservedly criticized -
have made Bush reluctant to use his absolute power of pardon.

Also, as Texas governor, Bush was burned when he pardoned a one-time
misdemeanor drug offender so that he could work in law enforcement,
only to watch Steve Raney be arrested for stealing cocaine during a
roadside arrest four months later.

For all of the above reasons, critics in the pardon community pretty
much have given up on Bush commuting Aaron's sentence. They have put
their hope into clemency from President-elect Barack Obama, who has
been critical of the draconian federal mandatory minimum sentencing
system. They believe that Bush will reserve his pardon power for
political operatives, and ignore excessive sentences imposed on the
unconnected.

So far, the critics have been right. Last year, Bush commuted the
30-month prison sentence of former vice presidential aide Scooter
Libby, because it was "excessive." But he has yet to commute the
sentence of Clarence Aaron. Aaron should be spending this Thanksgiving
and Christmas with his mother and his family. And only President Bush
can make that happen.

This article appeared on page G - 5 of the San Francisco Chronicle