A doctor testified at her trial that she was a classic victim of battered woman's syndrome, unable to break from her abuser. He sentenced her to 24 years and six months in prison. Both of those women were lucky in having devoted lawyers who took up their cause. Dorothy Gaines and Kemba Smith are examples of the human realities that can exist behind the slogans of the war on drugs. The so-called kingpins who prey on society deserve condign punishment.
Federal prisons are full of low-level, nonviolent drug offenders.
A coalition of clergy asked President Clinton to commute all their sentences. In freeing Gaines and Smith, he made a start, small but meaningful. The real challenge is for Congress to repeal the mandatory minimum provisions of the drug laws so judges can use the more flexible but still stiff sentencing guidelines. That will be difficult, because members of Congress are afraid of being called soft on crime. But someday, a president will have the courage to tell us how that harsh rigidity distorts our law.