Press Release

6/25/07

FAMM message to Congress:
Border agents shouldn’t get mandatory minimum sentences …
but neither should anyone else

For Immediate Release
Date:  June 25, 2007    

Contact:  media@famm.org

WASHINGTON, D.C.: Three years ago, Texas border agents Ignacios Ramos and Jose Compean fired 15 shots at an unarmed Mexican drug smuggler, striking him once as he tried to flee back to Mexico.  Both agents are now serving mandatory minimum prison sentences of 11 and 12 years for the shooting. 

These cases and others involving mandatory minimum sentences will be discussed tomorrow at a hearing before the House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. The president of the National Border Patrol Council will argue that Ramos and Compean should not be subject to mandatory minimum sentences.  Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) agrees. 

"Congress needs to get help for its addiction to mandatory sentencing laws. The sentencing judge in the border agent cases could figure out that the individuals and their crime were reprehensible without the mandatory minimum.  Judges know the facts of the case and can deliver just punishments without Congress tying their hands at sentencing," said Julie Stewart, founder and president of FAMM.

Mandatory minimums prevented just punishment in the case of another of tomorrow’s witnesses. FAMM member Serena Nunn was sentenced to 15½ years in federal prison when she was 19 years old for her minor role in her boyfriend’s drug offense.  The judge wanted to give her less prison time but he was handcuffed by the mandatory sentence required under federal law.

U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell, another witness, will relate his frustration with mandatory minimum sentences that forced him to sentence a first-time marijuana dealer to 55 years in prison for guns that were present during his drug transactions but never used.

Remarkably, the hearing is the first on mandatory minimum sentences since 1993, even though 72,000 people are sentenced federally each year, many of them to mandatory minimums. “Injustice has been running on autopilot for two decades and finally Rep. Bobby Scott is taking the wheel," said Stewart.

FAMM president Julie Stewart, and vice president and general counsel Mary Price, are available on Tuesday, June 26 to discuss the hearing and what it means for sentencing reform and the prisoners serving mandatory minimums. Contact media@famm.org to arrange an interview.

WHAT: Hearing on Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Laws – The Issues
WHEN:  June 26, 2007, 9:30 a.m.
WHERE:  2141 Rayburn House Office Building
WHO: Witness list available at

http://judiciary.house.gov/oversight.aspx?ID=343

Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) is a national non-partisan nonprofit organization that promotes just sentencing policies. For more information, visit: http://www.famm.org/