Jill S has been an active supporter of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) for a while and it was through her that I found out about them.  The issue hits home for me.  My half-brother was caught dealing weed and some acid at the WRONG time - during the whole Reagan "full extent of the law" years.  He went into prison when I was 7 and got out when I was 27.  20 years.  Granted he did some things while incarcerated that, um, worsened his situation.  But from what I understand, his case was pretty extreme.  Anyway, I wrote this song "Outside" about the time right after he had gotten out of prison, had come back to NY and was trying to re-connect with his family and former life there.  So hard.  

The studio version of this song is on my first album, but my husband Dan, Jill and I ended up re-recording it for this post with the 3 of us just sitting around a microphone, playing live.  

Michelle Lewis: "Outside"  (MP3, 5:01)

Jill's friend Julie Stewart is the founder of FAMM and generously wrote this post...


In the spring of 1990, I received a phone call from my brother Jeff that would change the course of my life.  He called me from the Spokane County jail in Washington State to tell me he had been arrested for growing marijuana.  My initial thoughts were "how stupid of you... but at least it's 'only' marijuana."   I had a lot to learn.  A few months later, Jeff was sentenced to five years in federal prison without parole.

Before Jeff's arrest, I naively assumed that in the American system of justice, the judge had the discretion to fashion punishment that was proportionate, based on the seriousness of the offense and the individual's role in the crime. But the prosecutor's power to take five years of my brother's freedom for nonviolent, victimless activity - against the wishes of the judge - convinced me that our justice system was totally screwed up.

I was so outraged by the injustice of my brother's sentence that quit my job and launched Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) to advocate for sentencing laws that didn't destroy lives!  FAMM does not promote drug legalization - instead we fight for sentencing policies that are individualized, humane, and sufficient but not greater than necessary to impose just punishment and protect public safety.  In other words, the punishment should fit the crime and the individual's role in it. The one-size-fits-all punishment of mandatory minimum sentences guarantees injustice will be done.

In the past 16 years, I have learned about those injustices from thousands of prisoners and their families whose stories make my brother's plight seem mild.  For example, a decorated Vietnam veteran named Marty Sax is serving 20 years in prison for a marijuana offense.  He was arrested five years after he withdrew from the business. By then he was a successful realtor and a married man with a seven-month old son.  Marty's son is now 15 years old.  Why did the government deprive him of the chance to be part of his son's entire childhood?  To rehabilitate a man who had not been involved in drugs for five years?  To protect society from a realtor?  Or to inflict mindless cruelty?  The judge who sentenced Marty apologized for imposing what he called a "draconian" sentence but stated that he had no choice.

Marty's judge and my brother's judge were not unique.  No federal judge has a choice in such cases because Congress insists on passing laws that mandate a specific minimum length of imprisonment for people convicted of certain crimes.  This arrogance is not new; in 1790, Congress enacted a mandatory sentence of life without parole for anyone convicted of piracy.  But it reached new heights of absurdity in the mid-1980s when Members of Congress tried to eradicate drug abuse by enacting a host of harsh mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offenses.

Today sentences are based solely on drug type and weight, and judges are forbidden to consider relevant facts such as the defendant's motive, family circumstances and likelihood of rehabilitation.  A handful of federal judges have quit the bench out of frustration with these laws. And senior judges routinely refuse to take drug cases because they know that mandatory sentences force them to sentence crimes, not people.  And what a price those people pay. . . .

Timothy Tyler was a 20-year-old following the Grateful Dead around the country like scores of other young people in the 1980s and '90s, racking up a short string of youthful convictions.  In 1992, Timothy mailed LSD to a "friend" who turned out to be a confidential informant for the government.  Timothy was arrested, convicted of selling over 10 grams of LSD and sentenced under a federal three-strikes law to life without parole in federal prison.   This nonviolent hippie will die in prison for selling LSD!  He has already served 15 years behind bars.

Our leaders seem to have an insatiable appetite for punishment.  In 1988, Congress passed a law that makes sure that mere "conspiracy" to commit a drug crime merits the same mandatory minimum sentence as imposed on the actual drug dealer.  Typically, co-conspirators in drug activities have different levels of involvement, but since 1988 low-level participants are subject to the same penalties as major dealers and kingpins.  One outcome of the law has been a steady stream of girlfriends and wives of drug dealers sentenced to prison for taking a phone call, or dropping off a package.  Today, women are incarcerated at nearly double the rate of men.

Brenda Valencia knows all about conspiracy laws.  Brenda was only 19 when she was arrested after driving her aunt, who didn't have a driver's license, to a house in Florida where her aunt sold seven kilos of cocaine.  Brenda didn't have anything to do with the sale and prosecutors didn't prove that she did.  But they were able to convict her of conspiracy to distribute cocaine based on the testimony of the cocaine buyer who said that Brenda made two statements that implied she knew there had been cocaine in the trunk of the car!  Brenda received a sentence of 12 years in prison.  The extra two years were added because her aunt carried a concealed weapon during the crime.  At her sentencing, Brenda's judge said, "This case is the perfect example of why the mandatory minimum sentences and the sentencing guidelines are not only absurd, but an insult to justice."

The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist referred to mandatory minimum sentences as "a good example of the law of unintended consequences" citing their "unduly harsh punishments."  Another unintended consequence is the transfer of sentencing power from the judge to the prosecutor.  When prosecutors charge defendants they know the exact sentence that each charge carries.   They use this information as a sledge hammer to induce guilty pleas and save themselves the trouble of proving guilt in a trial.  Defendants who don't plea and instead go to trial face additional charges, a government conviction rate of 95 percent, and decades behind bars.

Weldon Angelos found that out the hard way when he refused a 15-year plea offer for selling $200 worth of marijuana to undercover officers on three occasions.  Prosecutors retaliated by indicting him on 20 charges including carrying a firearm at each sale, although the gun was never shown. His convictions triggered a 55-year mandatory sentence!  U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell balked at sentencing Weldon to 55 years in prison, calling the sentence "unjust, cruel, and irrational," but in the end he was forced to impose the absurd sentence.  Weldon will be 75-years-old when he is released from prison and his young children will have children of their own.

These injustices occur daily in courtrooms across the country.  Nearly 75,000 people are prosecuted in federal court each year.  Over one-third of them are small-fry drug offenders like my brother whose cases should never rise to the level of federal prosecution.  Of course state prisons and jails are bursting with nearly half a million drug offenders - more people than are in European prisons for all crimes combined.  Beyond the human cost, these policies place a huge financial burden on American taxpayers.  States and the federal government spend about $10 billion a year imprisoning drug offenders.  It is recklessly wasteful - not to mention morally repugnant - to spend over $1.5 million dollars to incarcerate Deadhead Timothy Tyler until he dies in prison.

While FAMM has helped make significant changes to sentencing policies in Congress and several states, there is still much more to be done.  Thankfully, sentencing reform is hot right now, especially in Congress.  On November 1st, 2007, after a dozen years of fighting for changes, crack cocaine sentences will become slightly less onerous as a result of a change in the federal sentencing guidelines for crack offenses.   We're fighting to make the reform retroactive so it would apply to people already in prison, shortening their sentences by 15-30 months.  If it happens, it could impact up to 25,000 people!  There are also three bills in the Senate to improve mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine, two of which have bipartisan sponsorship.  And best of all, a bill to repeal all mandatory drug sentences is being drafted in the House of Representatives, which is the real solution to this mess.

We need more people to get involved in this fight for sentencing justice.  Not enough people seem to care about the men and women whose lives are passing them by as they sit in prison for decades for their nonviolent crimes.  It's too easy to dismiss those who break the law as "deserving" of prison punishment and forget all about them.  But their kids don't forget, or their parents, or their spouses and siblings.  If you want to learn more about draconian sentencing laws and what you can do, please visit our website, www.famm.org.


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