A big story in Michigan and Southern California over the past two months was the arrest of Susan LeFevre, 53, who had been on the run since 1976. LeFevre has since been sent back to prison in Michigan, where she'd escaped in 1976, and was charged anew yesterday.
Who is Susan LeFevre? A hardened criminal? A terrorist?
Susan LeFevre was a young woman who was convicted under Michigan's draconian drug laws in 1975 for trying to deal a small amount of heroin to an undercover cop. She was convicted and sent to minimum-security prison for ten-to-twenty years. In 1976, she climbed the fence and escaped in her grandfather's waiting car. Since then, she moved to the San Diego area, met a man, and got married. She has three children, who are all model students, and she was active in the community, working for groups like Common Cause.
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In short, Susan LeFevre has been the ideal model for what someone is supposed to be after leaving prison. The difference, sadly, is that had she served the sentence she was given in full, had she stayed in prison around hardened criminals, she probably wouldn't have turned out this way. She'd be unable to get a good job. She'd be less likely to have turned out better, because her exposure to the worst elements of our society would've been far greater.
Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy is fully pursuing the case, as she is paid to do, but this just seems like a giant waste of time and resources at this point. A great deal of Michiganders have petitioned Gov. Jennifer Granholm to pardon her and commute her sentence. I count myself amongst those people. We would be spending $35K a year to keep someone in prison that has reformed herself and contributed greatly to society, someone who is no risk to the population, someone who today would've received mere probation for her crime. She is a mother whose children want to see her as they graduate and get married.
Yes, she was wrong to escape prison, but she can be given probation if convicted on that offense, and that and a commutation of her sentence at time served would be appropriate based on today's laws. Once again, she was sentenced to 20 years in 1975 for an offense that would get mere probation today. She did serve a full year of time. She has done what society wanted her to do: get clean and become a model citizen. This is one of those rare circumstances where the end did justify the means, and it serves no one's purpose to spend more money than many of us make in a year to keep her in prison and away from her family.
Let Susan LeFevre go free.
Contact:
Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm:
Email
Phone: (517) 373-3400
Fax: (517) 335-6863
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy:
Phone: 313-224-5777
Fax: 313-224-0974
California Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger:
Email
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-558-3160