My

Stand

optt'rtott By susAN N. HERMAN

ANEWPATH

TOCTEMENCY
LIFE

WITHOUT PAROLE FOR NONVIOLENT OFFENSES IS CRUEL AND

COUNTERPRODUCTIVE-BUT NOW THERE IS HOPE, THE ACLU PRESIDENT

DISCUSSES THE ORGANIZATION'5 STRATEGY FOR CHANGE.
ATRICKMATTHEWS STOLE
TOOLS from a

toolshed when
he was zz.

His

punishment: life
in prison with no possibiliry
of parole.
Matthews is far from alone.
Thousands of Americans are
spending the rest of their
lives in prison for relatively

minor nonviolent offensesoften the result ofyouthful

mistakes, untreated mental
illness or drug addiction. And
a disproportionate number of

4*Tk:'1:-.
of affairs is the result of

end this cruel and unusual

punishment.
In November zot3,we
released a first-ever study of
people in the United States
serving life without parole
sentences for nonviolent
offenses, "A Living Death:
Life Without Parole for

Nonviolent Offenses." The

report laid bare the devastating consequences of these
extreme sentences and noted
that President Obama has the
worst clemency record of any
modem president.

ji

strategic partnership with

other reform organizations,

designed to take full advantage of the unprecedented
opportuniry to correct injustices in as many individual
cases as possible.
With the cooperation of
the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Clemency Project zot4
distributed notices about the
new clemency criteria to all
federal inmates. Within days,
roughly t5,ooo prisoners
completed surveys to stan
the process. Since then,

The imponance of this

work has been underscored

by one of the ACLU's more
unlikely allies, Burl Cain,
warden at the Louisiana
State Penitentiary in Angola.
Warden Cain knows better
than most that mandatory
sentences foreclose the possibiliry of rehabilitation.
"The name of our business
is corrections," he has said.

If a prison system succeeds

in rehabilltating an lnmate so
that "this person can go back
and be a productive citizen

pra

&n

inmate,l this person can go back and be a

1 and not commit crimes &g&Ln .,,

toxic combination of events,

including:
r harsh mandatory minimum
sentencing laws that strip
judges of the ability to
ensure that sentences

actualiy fit the crime

o "three-strikes"

and other
habitual offender laws that
impose lengthy, even lifelong, sentences
o the rollback of laws that
enabled prisoners to earn

the possibility of parole

through good behavior
The ACLU is taking the
lead to reform these draconian sentencing laws and

J{

and not commit crimes agaln

. . . then why are we keeping
them here?"

thousands more have done

the same.
In another positive
development, in April, the
U.S. Sentencing Commission
(USSC) voted unanimously to
reduce sentences for all fed-

I hope that-together with

all the inmates and attomeys
who can now use the path
our staff has so creatively

James Cole announced a

eral drug crimes. The USSC

blazed-we can persuade

historic clemency initiative

for federal prisoners and
asked attomeys across the
country to help compile lists
of clemency candidates and
assist them in writing commutation petitions.
The ACLU then formed
Clemency Project zo1.q a

then voted in July to apply

those reductions retroactively to thousands offederal
prisoners serving sentences
widely regarded as excessive.
The USSC anticipates thaL its
vote will reduce the sentences
of eligibie prisoners by an
average of z5 months.

President Obama to agree.

Just weeks after the

report's release, the President
commuted the sentences
of eight people, four of
whom had been profiled in

the repon. In addition,

Depury Attomey General

nr,rrnrcm crvrL r-rBERrEs uHror I wrHrrn 2015

SUSAN N. HERMAN isthe

ACLIJ's president and also
holds a chair as Centrnnial
Professor of Law at Brooklyn
Law School. She teaches cowses

in Constitutional Law and

Criminal Procedure.