Former 'M' player's sentence commuted

"I feel great being here with my mother and father," Michael Smith told the Kalamazoo Gazette from his parents' Kalamazoo home yesterday. "As each passing moment goes by, it's great. It feels good."

Smith, 42, was released Wednesday from the Lakeland Correctional Facility in Coldwater, after Gov. John Engler decided to commute a sentence handed down under what was considered one of the nation's toughest drug laws.

Engler also commuted the sentence of Herman Cortez, a Colombian citizen.

"I want to make sure every step I take is the right one," Smith told Detroit Free Press columnist Hugh McDiarmid. "I'll be under the microscope and I want to do the right thing."

The men were imprisoned under a 1978 law that imposed a life sentence without parole on anyone convicted of intending to or delivering at least 650 grams - or 1.4 pounds - of cocaine or heroin. More than 200 people went to prison under its terms.

The Legislature since has modified the law to allow for parole for those who have served 15 to 20 years under certain circumstances.

The commutations were in the spirit of the new law but were not mandated by it, Department of Corrections spokesperson Matt Davis said.

He said that after the law change, the state Parole Board decided to consider commuting the sentences of some people held under the law. Commutation always has been the prerogative of the governor, and most governors have used the power very sparingly, he said.

At a hearing in Mount Clemens on Oct. 15, former Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler asked the Parole Board to release Smith.

"He has teammates here that believe in him. He'll make a great contribution to society," Schembechler said.

"This is not a criminal."

Smith played football at Michigan during the 1970s. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1988 for selling more than 13 pounds of cocaine valued at about $140,000 to a Detroit undercover police officer in 1987.

The other man whose sentence was commuted, Cortez, has been in prison since 1981. He was convicted in 1982 in Wayne County for trafficking a large quantity of cocaine from Colombia. The 45-year-old has agreed to be deported to his homeland.

Davis said people should not expect to see a mass exodus of drug convicts under the new law.

For one thing, few of those convicted under the lifer law have been in prison long enough to be eligible for parole. And for another, parole is not automatic even for those who are eligible.

"They've dribbled in, and if they're paroled, they'll dribble out," Davis said.

The Parole Board decided against recommending the commutation of a third drug-law convict who also sought early release at the Oct. 15 hearing along with Smith and Cortez.

JeDonna Young of Detroit was 24 when she was convicted in 1979 for carrying drugs belonging to a boyfriend. Until his death in prison, he insisted she did not know what was inside.

Young earned a bachelor's degree in prison and works there as a paralegal.

Davis said the case for Young's release was "not as compelling" because she had some disciplinary problems while in prison. The board will consider her for parole when she becomes eligible in 1999, he said.

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