LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Obama’s Slippery sentence-commutation slope

OPINION:

I think President Obama’s idea to commute the sentences of 46 drug offenders was a good one, but I also think it will create a slippery-slope effect in which people who have been sentenced for other crimes using federal mandatory minimum guidelines will also seek to have their sentences commuted.

And what about those who have already spent years in prison for now-shortened sentences — will we compensate them? If lighter sentences are in order, where is the justice for those who have already spent nearly a lifetime in prison?

RUFUS E. GILLETTE III

Washington