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December 13, 2002
"Julie Stewart of Families Against Mandatory Minimums"
An interview with Julie Stewart, President of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, and a 2002 Leadership for a Changing World awardee. Questions and answers will appear below starting at 1 pm EST on Friday, December 13. You may ask a question in advance by clicking on the "Submit a Question" button. Due to time constraints, not all questions will be answered. You may need to refresh your screen during the interview to read the most recent responses. read background Leadership for a Changing World
Welcome to Leadership Talks with Julie Stewart, President of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM). Thank you for joining us.
Julie, what motivated you to start FAMM?
Julie Stewart
Like many people, I learned about sentencing laws after being affected by them. In 1990, my brother, Jeff, was arrested for growing marijuana in Washington State and was prosecuted federally, and received a 5-year prison sentence. While I was devastated that he had to go to prison for 5 years, I was outraged that the judge in his case had no discretion but to sentence him to 5 years. I soon learned that the mandatory minimum drug sentencing laws Congress passed in 1986, were responsible for tying the judges’ hands, and I decided to start an organization to change these laws.
San Antonio, Texas
How does an interested party find out how many and who from their hometown is encarcerated under mandatory minimums?
Julie Stewart
There is no way to do that easily. It's impossible to find out that information, but you can get close by contacting FAMM and we can put you in touch with FAMM members who live in your community.
New Haven, CT
FAMM seems to have grown into a large national organization with chapters and members all over the country. What are some of the challenges of having such a large network and how do you handle them?
Julie Stewart
Any national organization has problems sort of coordinating national chapters. We have very good volunteers running each chapter who are both inventive in ways to get the message out as well as working with us. When we do a national campaign they add their local parts in their community. We've had very few problems over 12 years of chapters going on their own. Everyone who works for us as a volunteer either has someone in prison or been in prison, so they're very focused on our mission of reforming mandatory minimums.
Cincinnati, OH
Congratulations on your victory in Michigan!
What was FAMM's role in the bipartisan coalition that successfully pushed for Michigan's sentencing reform bills? Did you help to bring groups together, or were you more focused on crafting the legislation?
Julie Stewart
I don't want to overstate FAMM's importance in this victory, but, frankly, if FAMM had not been involved I don't think it would have happened. Our executive director, Laura Sager, was instrumental in pulling together bipartisan support for this bill. It means we didn't get everything we wanted because we had to make compromises. It also means that, in effect, mandatory drug sentencing in Michigan state have been repealed and prisoners that are serving them will be eligible for early parole. So it will have a huge impact on defendants facing mandatory drug sentences and those already behind bars. But it could not have been accomplished without the support of the prosecuting attorneys in Michigan.
Yakima, WA
I am curious to know your stance on our state's "3 strikes" legislation? Please comment.
Julie Stewart
FAMM opposes Washington state's 3 strikes law and California's as well because they are another form of mandatory minimum sentencing. Both laws prohibit a judge from considering the seriousness of the third strike, and forces them to impose a mandatory life sentence regardless of the factors involved in of the third strike. For instance, the U.S. Supreme Court just heard a California 3 strikes case that involved dealing $150 worth of children's videos. The defendant was sentenced to life in prison. We believe that is absurd overpunishment and we hope the Supreme Court will agree with us when it decides the case.
San Antonio, Texas
Does FAMM maintain a listing of elected officials who advocate or support unfair minimum sentencing laws?
Julie Stewart
No, we do not have an official list of legislators who are for us or against us. We're not a PAC, but we do know who we need to work on in the states in which we work. We know who our opponents are and who our advocates are, and the same is true in Congress. However, it's impossible for us to learn the position of every member of Congress or state legislator which is why we depend on our membership to contact their elected officials and learn what their positions are and educate them about the failures of mandatory minimum sentencing laws.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL
How does input from the prisoners and their families affect what your organization does? How do you make sure you're meeting their needs?
Julie Stewart
The membership of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) is two-thirds prisoners and their families. The prisoners frequently bring to our attention sentencing and prison policies that need to be addressed, and we depend on their families to help us get the sentencing reform message to their communities. We hold advocacy training workshops around the country so family members can learn to be better activists for sentencing reform and many family members become Chapter Coordinators for FAMM in their states, taking on additional responsibilities to organize FAMM members in their areas.
Kellogg, Idaho
Congratulations Julie for being recognized for the Leadership for Changing World award. Your cause is definitely justification for such recognition.
My question is: What recourse does a person have who has been the subject of unfair sentencing? What is the most immediate and affective action that should be taken?
Barbara Miller, 2001 LCW Awardee
Julie Stewart
Families Against Mandatory Minimums does not do litigation for individual cases. So the resources in the individual's case are hard to know. Of course, I would suggest appeal, appeal, appeal, but that may not be appropriate. What we do is take the aggregate of unfair sentences delivered to thousands of people around the country and use them to illustrate what's wrong with these laws because, for us, the recourse is changing the laws so everyone will benefit. And individuals who have someone in prison really should join forces with FAMM to help educate the legislators in their states about the need for reform. And the success in Michigan yesterday provides an excellent example of how other state legislators could reform sentencing laws and we want to share that model with other states.
Omaha, NE
Have you seen a shift in public attitudes towards drug offenders over the years you've been involved?
Julie Stewart
Yes, there is definitely a growing public awareness that mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offenders aren’t cost-effective or productive. Two recent surveys confirm that changing attitude: Last year, the ACLU conducted a poll that found that 61 percent of those polled favored changing current laws so that fewer non-violent offenses are punishable by prison. And this year, a poll conduced by Peter Hart Associates showed that only 38 percent of those polled favor mandatory minimum sentences, down from 55 percent in 1995.
Dallas, TX
How do you answer critics who say that you are defending criminals who broke the law, and that there are more important things to fight for?
Julie Stewart
There were always be critics in any social justice movement, but we're not defending the crimes that these people have committed. We're simply wanting the punishment for the crime to fit the offense and the offender's role in the offense. We are not against prisons. We're not against punishment. We merely want the sentence to reflect the seriousness of the crime and the offender's role.
For instance, a yong woman who is 19, Nicole, was the girlfriend of a young man who was selling LSD and she went with him to one drug sale where she stayed in the car and he went into the house. And then, at some point, an undercover agent called her house to find out where her boyfriend was to pay him for some LSD he'd purchased. She gave the undercover agent her boyfriend's phone number and when the boyfriend was arrested, Nicole was also arrested as part of the conspiracy, and she felt that she was so minimally involved that she took her case to trial. The jury found her guilty and the judge was forced to sentence her to 10 years in prison without parole. Her boyfriend plead guilty and provided the names of other drug dealers to the prosecution and he got a sentence of 5 years. So I think that's an excellent example of overkill for a defendant who was clearly a minor defendant and by exercising her right to trial ended up getting stuck with a 10 year mandatory sentence. In fact, two of the jurors were interviewed after the sentencing and when they found out that she got 10 years, they were aghast and one of them said, "If I had known the sentence that she was going to receive, we would still be sitting in that jury room today."
Monticello, Kentucky
No question. I have seen what you are fighting against. Keep up the good work.
Julie Stewart
Thanks, it's always wonderful to know that people understand how important FAMM's work is.
Alexandria, VA
Have you found support or an ally in a place or person that you wouldn't have expected?
Julie Stewart
Yes, it's been wonderful to learn that, in fact, prosecutors don't always support mandatory minimum sentencing laws. And one of those who comes to mind the most is Senator Sessions from Aalbama, who is a former U.S. attorney and has put people away for many, many years under mandatory minimum sentencing laws and now recognizes that some of those laws are excessive. Last year, he sponsored a bill to improve mandatory drug sentences for crack cocaine defendants and for the least culpable drug defendants. Also, the Republican chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee was a supporter of the bills that we just passed there.
Another unusual ally has been a former federal prison warden, Joe Bogan from TX, who I think brings a very valuable perspective to the debate of who should be behind bars.
Wilmington, MA
Who would you say are your key coalition partners in your work? Are you part of the drug policy reform and/or prison reform movement? Do you work with religious organizations? Any surprising alliances?
Julie Stewart
We work with a lot of different partners, the civil rights community, the NAACP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, La Raza, MALDEF, and many local civil rights groups within states. We also with the prison reform organizations and religious groups, churches, synagogues, mosques. We also work with the AFGE. They represent the prison guards. That's a surprising alliance because prison guards don't like overflowing prisons because it becomes a safety issue. They're outnumbered and they don't like to be overly outnumbered.
We don't work closely with the drug reform movement because it clouds our issue, which is not a drug issue, but a justice issue which happens to apply, in most cases, to drug offenders.
Manchester, NH
What have you found to be the biggest obstacle to establishing the legitimacy of your organization?
Julie Stewart
I think FAMM is considered a very legitimate organization, partly because we have taken a very a nonradical approach to sentencing reform that includes people who are 80 and people who are 18, and ask them to politely and persistently work on their legislators to get them familiar with sentencing laws. And we've always positioned ourselves as a responsible advocacy organization that is comfortable for legislators to meet with.
I think that the only obstacles that I can see are that too often people believe that if you're working on reforming sentencing laws then you must be a bleeding-heart liberal. There's a knee jerk reaction and connection that is not accurate. Our membership covers the political spectrum and we try very hard to maintain a nonpartisan attitude in our written material and our message because, frankly, neither majority party is very helpful on sentencing reform issues.
Princeton, NJ
You work with all three branches of government, national and states - if you had to choose, which strategy would you say is the most critical?
Julie Stewart
It's hard to pick one strategy and say it alone would work. I think that we could not be successsful without lobbying the legislators. They hold the keys to changing the laws and our membership plays a very valuable role teaching legislators across the country, so we are set up as a grass-roots advocacy organization and that works. However, we have also had a lot of success at chipping away at these laws through the courts. And we hired a lawyer about 7 years ago who has really helped argue in court that portions of these laws are unconstitutional or are not appropriate. And we've had victories at the Supreme Court level that have made a big difference in these laws.
For example, in 1995, the Supreme Court ruled that mere possession of a firearm during a drug transaction would no longer trigger the 5-year mandatory minimum sentence. This was important because too often a hunting rifle in a closet with bullets in a drawer across the room would be used to increase the person's sentence under gun laws that were being widely abused by the prosecution. The Supreme Court fixed that.
Portland, OR
I understand you worked with the Clinton administration to win clemency for some of your members. Would you say your strategy has changed significantly with the change in administration?
Julie Stewart
No, our strategy hasn't changed. The Clinton commutations were simply a window of opportunity that we couldn't afford to miss. He was a lame duck. He had said for 8 years that he cared about nonviolence and drug prisoners serving too much time, but he hadn't done anything about it. So we decided to put pressure on him and submit lots of good cases to the pardon attorney's office to try to get him to grant commutations, and he did. President Bush has no record of granting commutations as a governor in Texas or as a president. However, we continue to send the pardon attorney's office good cases for commutation and we hope that his compassionate conservatism will result in some commutations for the holidays. Commutations are nice, but we can't afford to spend too much time on helping a handful of people at the back end of the process when we need to change the laws for everybody at the front end.
Birmingham, AL
How do you successfully turn the personal into the political? Your volunteers, and yourself came into this work thru personal experiences. How do you develop leadership so that these individuals become activists for broader change, rather than just for their own families?
Julie Stewart
When we started FAMM in 1991, we modeled it after Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which had taken personal tragedy and used it to change laws. Our members come to us with a broken heart because their loved one is in prison. It takes a while for them to get past grieving and get angry, but then we can help them channel that anger into a productive means of educating the public and policymakers what has happened in their personal case. I think many people recognize that any change in sentencing laws is good if it doesn't directly affect their loved ones. And I'm always very impressed by the letters we receive where people are doing all they can to change the law they know will not help the person they care about in prison, but they recognize it's for the greater good. Yesterday I heard from a woman in Michigan who was so excited about our victory in Michigan yesterday, and even though her husband is serving time in the federal prison system she said, "I worked for a year to help get these Michigan laws changed and now I'm going to work on changing the federal laws." So people recognize the connection that any change in a mandatory minimum sentencing law anywhere increases the domino effect that it will change the laws in their state or at the federal level.
Oakland, CA
Your work is critical but sounds daunting. How do you and your staff keep from giving up? How do you keep up the morale of your members - many of whom have families who are, or are themselves unfairly stuck in jail for a long time?
Julie Stewart
Well, the FAMM staff is certainly not sustained through big salaries! We have an amazingly dedicated staff of nine who work for very little financial reward, but care deeply about the injustices caused by mandatory minimum sentencing laws. It is impossible not to care about sentencing when you read the letters we get from prisoners and their families telling us of the hardships that they endure as a result of incarceration, and the outrageous sentences given to them for playing very peripheral roles in the drug offense. It breaks your heart to read these letters. I know that hearing from the prisoners and their families is what sustains me, and I suspect that is true for all of the FAMM staff. But we also try to do fun activities that keep us connected. One of the simplest is holding a staff meeting every Monday morning where we spend the first half an hour talking about the highlights of our weekend. It’s very unifying to gather around and simply talk about what movies we saw, or museum exhibits, or what our kid/cat/dog did that was funny, or whatever. We also try to do a summer barbeque and always a winter Holiday Party, and as many pizza birthday parties and going-away parties as possible. We need some levity to balance the challenges of working for sentencing reform.
Leadership for a Changing World
Unfortunately we have time for just one more question. Julie, what do you consider success and how do you measure it?
Julie Stewart
We have a lot of measures of success because if we only measured success by the repeal of mandatory minimum sentencing laws, we would get discouraged. Besides, there are many steps short of total repeal that have dramatic impact on the lives of people being convicted of drug offenses. For instance, we have had federal legislative successes since 1993 that have improved sentences for LSD offenders, marijuana offenders, the least culpable offenders, and those serving life in prison in Michigan. Just this year, the U.S. Sentencing Commission made changes to the sentencing guidelines that will reduce sentences for 1200-1300 drug defendants each year. And in Michigan we are on the cusp of passing legislation that will effectively eliminate mandatory minimum drug sentences, offer early parole to those in prison, and end life-time probation. These are significant measures of success that directly impact people’s lives.
Leadership for a Changing World
Thank you for joining us today for Leadership Talks with Julie Stewart. For more information:
Julie Stewart
Families Against Mandatory Minimums
1612 K St., NW, Suite 700
Washington, DC 20009
Phone: 202-822-6700
Fax: 202-822-6704
Email: julie@famm.org
Web: www.famm.org
Please check back with us for future Leadership Talks.
Julie Stewart
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