The challenge

In the 1980’s and early 1990’s, mandatory minimum sentencing laws swept through federal and state legislatures. Partly as a result, a record two million Americans are in prison. Mandatory minimums strip judges of their usual discretionary power to take into consideration the particulars of the case and the defendant. Opponents argue that inflexible and sometimes excessive mandatory minimum sentences harm not only those convicted but also their families and communities.


Seeds of commitment

In 1990, Julie Stewart, a former flight attendant and public affairs director at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, became an activist against mandatory sentencing. Her brother had been arrested for growing marijuana in a garage in the state of Washington, had pled guilty, and — though this was his first offense — the judge sentenced him to five-years in federal prison without parole. While criticizing the punishment as too harsh, the judge proceeded with the sentence because the law left him no choice. “My brother has long since left prison and now has a wife, a beautiful daughter and a good job,” says Stewart. “But I am still motivated by the unfairness of a system in which politicians mandate sentences for defendants they have never laid eyes on. I am also motivated by the faces of all those now serving needlessly long sentences — and their families who await their return.”


Accomplishments

In 1991, Stewart founded Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM). The national nonprofit organization is dedicated to challenging inflexible and excessive penalties required by mandatory sentencing laws. “At our first organizing meeting, I met the mothers, wives and children of prisoners,” says Stewart. “As I listened, I realized that these families and thousands like them must be heard.” FAMM started with Stewart and boxes full of letters from prisoners and their families. Since then, the organization has grown to include 27,000 members, with 35 chapters in 25 states. The national office has a staff of eight and a budget of $700,000.

By putting a human face on mandatory sentencing, FAMM has played a major role in creating a new debate about the federal law, which mandates the same minimum sentence — five years — for possessing or selling five grams of crack cocaine as for 500 grams of powder cocaine. Civil rights activists consider this 100 to 1 ratio discriminatory, because 96 percent of crack defendants are black, even though more whites use crack than blacks. Yet public pressure on office holders to appear tough on crime makes many of them reluctant to change these laws. Working to change public perception, FAMM maintains a database of 9,000 cases that provide reporters and activists nationwide with compelling personal anecdotes. On the group’s website, visitors can click on a photo from a wedding or a graduation ceremony, and discover that the bride or the proud West Point graduate is now serving a sentence of 20 years, perhaps for giving a friend, who sold drugs, a lift to a party. Earlier this year, the film “Guilt by Association” dramatized the incarceration of a fictional mother, a composite of real FAMM members. The movie, starring Mercedes Ruehl, debuted as Court TV’s first original screenplay film, drawing two million viewers.

Most impressively, FAMM led the fight for the 1994 passage of a “safety valve” bill. The law gives federal judges discretion to reduce sentences for non violent first-time drug offenders. Every year since 1994, 5,000 people — one in four nonviolent first-time drug offenders entering federal prison — have received sentence reductions of as much as three years. The organization was also influential in changing LSD and marijuana plant guidelines. This latter change promptly freed hundreds of inmates, and many others received shorter sentences. FAMM members in Michigan were key to changing that state’s notorious “lifer” law, which had mandated sentences for anyone caught with 650 grains or more of heroin to life without parole.

Other subtle but still important accomplishments include FAMM activity to discourage new mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offenses and 17 sentences commuted in 2001 by President Clinton on the basis of FAMM recommendations. The organization continues to help arrange pro bono legal representation, which was crucial in these sentence commutations. FAMM’s staff attorney, Mary Price, assists with post conviction appeals and files friend-of-the-court briefs with the Supreme Court.


Her leadership style
In Washington D.C., Stewart builds bridges among unlikely allies to broaden the base of support for sentencing reform. Across the country, she persuades FAMM members — including some who must bear the stigma of past involvement in illegal activity — to join her in community activism. Together, they fight for change, even if it is unlikely to improve the lives of their own loved ones. To encourage leadership at the community level, she and her staff invite and train members to become FAMM coordinators, who foster and oversee the group’s activities in their states. Many of FAMM’s 35 volunteer coordinators hold regular chapter meetings where people — many with family members in prison — share support, learn more about mandatory sentencing laws and develop strategies for reform.


The future

FAMM, already engaged in state based campaigns in Massachusetts, New York and Michigan, plans to expand into additional states in the coming year to fight for changes in state mandatory sentencing laws. While acknowledging the importance of state sentencing reform, Stewart calls reform at the federal level “our ultimate prize.” Largely as a result of FAMM’s efforts, the U.S. Sentencing Commission formally proposed to reduce crack penalties to those for powder cocaine. Although Congress rejected this landmark recommendation, the fight continues — and this year Stewart feels the political will is finally in place to improve these laws.

She also hopes that a new reform bill, based on FAMM model sentencing legislation, will be introduced in Congress this year. “Thousands of the organization’s members are poised to rally around such a bill, which we hope will directly affect their loved ones.” The group will continue to collaborate with prominent civil rights, social justice and human rights organizations to advance sentencing reform. “I have met so many people whose lives have been shattered by these laws,” she says. “I will keep on fighting these injustices until I can honestly say that America’s sentencing laws reflect the basic tenets of American justice: Let the punishment fit the crime — and the offender’s role in the crime.”


More about Julie Stewart

“I’ve dealt with lots of groups and lots of individuals. Some are more effective than others. Julie Stewart is at the top. Politically and philosophically, we differ a good deal. But when I deal with her, I know I will get honest information.”
— John Steer, vice chair, U.S. Sentencing Commission

“She is the epitome of an inspiring leader who is greatly admired in her field but little known outside; she has had success attacking tough social problems in a very hostile environment; she has brought together people of all classes and races to build from scratch the nation’s largest, most effective sentencing reform group. Yet Families Against Mandatory Minimums is not ‘The Julie Stewart Show.’”
— Dennis Cauchon, National Reporter, USA Today

“Julie’s conception…brings both conservatives and liberals to the same table and to the same understanding of how unjust and counterproductive this quick fix actually has been.”
— Melody Barnes, Senator Ted Kennedy’s Chief Counsel to the Judiciary Committee

“In thinking about all the times I’ve been with her, I don’t think I’ve ever heard her say the word ‘I.’ She’s that beacon of hope and good sense in a messy situation. She breathed life into [debate about] the drug sentencing problem and then gave the rest of us the life to go out and make changes for our own children.”
— Dr. Arthur Curry, Executive Director of the District of Columbia School-to-Work Initiative