Drug Felon Finds That New Laws Don't Mean Quick Release From Prison

Fifteen years and 65 days ago, Chris Clemente was a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania when he was arrested after police caught him throwing small bags of cocaine, vials of crack, a spiked baseball bat, and firearms from the window of his brother's apartment in Harlem.

It has been a long time in prison since then. In 1991, Clemente was sentenced under the state's Rockefeller drug laws to 16 years to life in prison for drug and weapons possession.

Now, Clemente, 34, is one of New York's 443 inmates eligible for reduced or terminated sentences under the reformed Rockefeller drug laws. In January, state lawmakers revised the statutes to offer nonviolent drug offenders more lenient sentences.

But getting out of jail under the new laws is not so easy, Clemente learned yesterday - even if the judge overseeing your case wants you released right away.

The delays in Clemente's resentencing application are not over the merits of the case, but are the result of legal technicalities and incomplete paperwork that have prompted prosecutors to delay his resentencing hearing for a second time.

Clemente must wait at least two more weeks in prison, perhaps longer, while prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office have a chance to review his application further.

Clemente wasn't the only one disturbed by the delay.

Sitting in the same courtroom where Clemente was convicted in 1991, the state Supreme Court Justice overseeing Clemente's reapplication sentence, Richard Lowe III, looked Clemente in the eyes and told him he guaranteed his release.

"Make no mistake about it," the judge said. "This court intends to grant you your application."

At that declaration, Clemente's face went flush. "Today, your honor, would be beautiful," he said.

But, again, the hearing was postponed. The assistant district attorney, Joel Seidemann, requested more time to file court papers responding to Clemente's sentencing application.

Another date has been set for March 30. Asked about the application, a spokeswoman for the district attorney, Sherri Hunter, said, "We're reviewing it."

Judge Lowe, who also presided over Clemente's original trial, told The New York Sun he was "disappointed" by the delay.

As Clemente served most of his sentence in the state's toughest maximum-security prisons, Judge Lowe said he has kept in touch with Clemente by exchanging letters.

Yesterday, he told Clemente the sentence he handed down was too harsh, but that it was unavoidable. The Rockefeller laws, drafted in 1973 in response to a heroin epidemic, required the judge to follow the sentencing guidelines.

He also raised questions about Clemente's culpability. "They were his brother's drugs," the judge said.

In fact Clemente's defense has always been that he was the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

On January 9, 1990, a 911 call was made to a Harlem apartment across the door from Clemente's brother's apartment, and cops began knocking on the door.

His older brother, Henry, had left, and Clemente, a former starting football lineman on an Ivy League scholarship, opened the door. Cops noticed blood on his hands from the broken glass.

When they searched the apartment, they found more than five ounces of cocaine, vials, baggies, the spiked bat, and other firearms both in the apartment and tossed out of a broken window.

Clemente and a woman inside the apartment, Leah Bundy, were charged with drug and weapons possession. Clemente was suspended from school, which prompted protests on campus.

His brother was shot to death a year later. Bundy was granted clemency by Governor Pataki in 2000 after serving 10 years in prison.

"I've been through it all," Clemente told the Associated Press before his trial. "I'm like the most well-rounded black person I know. I have to keep bouncing back, dodging, and weaving, and keep going."

In hindsight, Clemente's pro bono attorney, Ron Kuby, said in court yesterday he had made "one of the biggest mistakes of my career" by letting himself and his former partner, the veteran civil rights attorney, William Kunstler, take the case to trial. Instead, Clemente should have negotiated a plea deal with prosecutors and walked out of state prison more than a decade ago.

Ultimately, Clemente's conviction fell under such a complicated sentence structure that it didn't precisely fit within the revised Rockefeller statutes and needs untangling.