Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 13:19:11 -0500
From: Chuck0 <chuck-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: [i-news] Clinton To Act on Clemency Requests


Clinton To Act on Clemency Requests
By Deb Riechmann
Associated Press Writer
Friday, December  22, 2000; 12:49 PM 

WASHINGTON ––  President Clinton was making decisions on Friday about
granting clemency to some of the scores of convicted Americans seeking
presidential pardons or lighter punishment.

Among those seeking intervention are a Wall Street financier, an
American Indian activist convicted of killing two FBI agents and a
longtime Clinton friend and supporter convicted of trying to influence a
former member of Clinton's cabinet.

"There are a number of different cases where there are mandatory
minimums (sentences) that have been unduly harsh and there may be one or
two cases like that today, particularly in cases where the person was
involved in nonviolent drug conviction," White House press secretary
Jake Siewert said Friday.
 
He said the president was expected to make more clemency announcements
before Jan. 20.

Asked on Thursday whether convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard was on
the list, Siewert replied: "I wouldn't expect anything new on that." The
administration has been reviewing Israel's request that Pollard be
released. The former civilian analyst for the U.S. Navy was convicted of
espionage in 1985 for giving Israel tens of thousands of top-secret
documents. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Earlier this week, a coalition of 675 clergy asked Clinton to commute
sentences of nonviolent drug offenders. In a letter, the group asked the
president to grant clemency and release on supervised parole those
federal prisoners who have served at least five years for low-level,
nonviolent involvement in drug cases.

"To find some of those drug offenders who deserve to be released,
Clinton should appeal to the more than 600 federal trial judges, asking
each to name at least one defendant whom he or she was required by
mandatory sentencing laws to sentence to a term he or she thought was
unjust – the kind of cases that the judges lost sleep over," said Chap
Thevenot, coalition coordinator.

Among others who have asked Clinton for clemency:

–Leonard Peltier, convicted of killing FBI agents Ron Williams and Jack
Koler who were searching for robbery suspects on the Pine Ridge Indian
reservation in South Dakota in June 1975. He was convicted and sentenced
in 1977. The defense contended that evidence against him was falsified.

–Susan McDougal, a former real estate business partner of the Clintons
who was sentenced in 1996 and released from prison in 1998. She was
convicted of four felonies related to a fraudulent $300,000 federally
backed loan that she and her husband, failed savings and loan owner
James McDougal, never repaid. About $30,000 of the loan was used as a
down payment on property briefly placed in the name of Whitewater
Development, the Arkansas real estate venture of the Clintons and
McDougals.

–Michael Milken, who made billions for himself and others in the 1980s
junk bond business, was convicted of securities fraud, served 22 months
of a 10-year sentence and paid over $1 billion in fines, restitution and
legal settlements. Milken's pardon request is backed by one of Clinton's
original benefactors, California supermarket mogul Ron Burkle.

–Archie Schaffer III, a Tyson Foods executive convicted under a 1907 law
of trying to influence agricultural policy by arranging for
then-Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy to attend a Tyson birthday party in
Arkansas in 1993.