Reviewing the type of federal drug case that the SRCA should most impact
When he was an addict and petty criminal, Leo Guthmiller knew little, and cared less, about the federal government’s harsh drug sentencing laws. The worst he’d endured was 90 days at the county lockup in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Then, last April, nearly two years after he’d stopped popping painkillers and smoking methamphetamine, Guthmiller was arrested by two federal agents as he headed for a drug counseling session. He later learned why: a junkie and his girlfriend, facing stiff prison sentences, had told investigators that Guthmiller had introduced them to his meth dealer around the time he was getting sober. That made him the middleman in a street-level drug distribution scheme.
Because this was a federal case, and the amount of meth exceeded 500 grams, or 1.1 pounds, Guthmiller was suddenly facing at least 10 years behind bars as a co-conspirator…. The charge thrust him, unwittingly, into a raging debate over a pillar of America’s war on drugs: mandatory-minimum sentences. Intended to sideline high-level traffickers, the laws have been used to sweep thousands of nonviolent, small-time offenders into epic prison terms….
Guthmiller didn’t dispute the couple’s accusation. But he bristled at the government’s portrayal of him as a scheming operative. Besides, he was a changed man: sober, working, studying for his GED, leading AA meetings, completing a drug court program, newly married. Still, he pleaded guilty, unwilling to risk a trial that could end in an even longer prison term. “I’m not an innocent person, but at the same time this is all a bit much, I feel,” Guthmiller told NBC News.
At his sentencing in mid-February, U.S. District Court Judge John Gerrard agreed. He praised Guthmiller’s turnaround, but said federal drug statutes gave him no choice. He called the case “Exhibit A” on why Congress needed to pass The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, which would give judges more flexibility. “A 10-year mandatory minimum sentence in a case like this is absolutely ridiculous,” Gerrard said from the bench. “And the only reason I am imposing the sentence that I am imposing today is because I have to.”…
The judge’s remarks caught the attention of the Washington, D.C., advocacy group Families Against Mandatory Minimums. As he prepared to spend the next decade behind bars, Guthmiller found himself cast as a case study in America’s unforgiving drug laws. “The whole idea is these 10-year sentences were written by Congress to go after serious drug offenders, and they’re being applied to a guy who is home and is going to drive himself to prison,” said Kevin Ring, the group’s vice president. “He obviously isn’t this major criminal that everyone should be so scared of.”
This is a key point in the drug-law reform effort, which has inspired an unlikely alliance among Democrats and Republicans, many of whom gathered at the White House last week to discuss their campaign. Mandatory minimum sentences, toughened during 1980s crime panics, established criteria under which judges had to impose lengthy prison terms for drug trafficking. The penalties depended on the type of drug, the amount of it, the offender’s criminal history and the nature of the crime — including whether the offense involved violence, weapons or children. The new laws triggered an explosion in the U.S. prison population, contributing to a dramatic decline in crime rates but also costing taxpayers millions.
That cost-benefit balance has since tipped. Researchers now say that mass incarceration’s impact on the crime rate has ebbed. Studies show that the likelihood of punishment, rather than the length of a prison sentence, is more likely to deter criminals. And there are now millions of nonviolent ex-offenders — a disproportionate number of whom are black — unable to contribute to the economy, including many who return to crime. Reformers argue that the money America spends on prisons would be better used for cops, schools and alternatives to jail, such as probation and drug courts.
In a 2011 report to Congress, the U.S. Sentencing Commission found that mandatory minimums focused too heavily on the amount of drugs and not enough on the offender’s role in the trafficking operation. The commission has since loosened some of its guidelines retroactively, allowing thousands of nonviolent, low-level drug offenders to leave prison early. President Barack Obama joined the effort by granting clemency to many others.
Those moves are considered Band-Aids compared to the larger fix offered by the Sentencing Reform Act, legislation that would allow judges to impose shorter prison terms for bit players. But the bipartisan bill is bogged down by election-year politics. The Justice Department, meanwhile, has tried to change the system from within, ordering federal prosecutors to focus on high-level dealers. It appears to be working: the number of mandatory-minimum cases has dropped to 45 percent of all federal drug cases, down from 66.8 percent in 2007.
John Higgins, chief of the narcotics unit at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nebraska, said in a statement that his prosecutors followed the Justice Department’s advice, seeking mandatory minimums “only in those cases that warrant it.” That included Guthmiller’s, he said. He declined to go into detail, but pointed to court hearings in which prosecutors alleged that Guthmiller’s 2013 matchmaking between the dealer and the couple led to the sale of 15-pounds of meth. “Methamphetamine is the number one drug threat in Nebraska,” Higgins said.