Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:35:52 -0500 (EST)
To: comments@WhiteHouse.gov
Subject: commute Clarence Aaron's sentence for a non-violent drugs offence

Fox News recently reported on the case of Clarence Aaron, a university student
and a good citizen who was convicted a decade and a half ago of conspiracy 
to distribute cocaine.  His conviction stems only from the fact that, as a
student struggling to pay tuition fees, he accepted money in return for
introducing a friend to a drug dealer.  Although others involved in the crime
received lenient sentences in exchange for testifying against Mr Aaron, Mr
Aaron himself was sentenced to three life sentences without the possibility
of parole.  (One year later, Congress passed a "safety valve" exempting 
first-time, non-violent offenders from mandatory minimum sentences, but the
law was not retroactive.)  It is unethical to keep Mr Aaron imprisoned:
his continued incarceration does nothing towards his rehabilitation, and
people who were guilty of more serious crimes have received much lesser
sentences.  I urge you to commute Mr Aaron's sentence, and those of all  
prisoners who similarly have run afoul of mandatory minimum sentencing
laws, so that they will be immediately able to rejoin society as productive
citizens.

Matthew Belmonte