Roland Gutierrez: “we are debating today a concurrent resolution that states that it is the sense of Congress that ``the President should…”

“we are debating today a concurrent resolution that states that it is the sense of Congress that ``the President should not have granted clemency to terrorists.'' The resolution uses the word ``terrorist'' 10 or 15 sometimes. I have heard the word terrorist used incalculable times during this debate, and I am sure I will continue to hear it throughout the rest of this morning. So I would like to talk about that word and its connection to these people who have been offered clemency, in a way that is a little more accurate, a little more honest, and perhaps a little less driven by politics. They were convicted of crimes. Specifically they were convicted of weapons possession, car theft and robbery. These are not acts of terrorism. These individuals are not terrorists. They are also convicted of seditious conspiracy, a political charge, a charge entirely unrelated to violence, a charge virtually never used in America in the second half of the 20th Century. For these crimes, ``crimes,'' that is an absolutely essential point, crimes in which not one person was seriously injured, crimes which did not cause one person to be killed, not one, they were sentenced to 90 years in prison. Ninety years. In the late 1980s when they were sentenced, the length of their sentences for these nonviolent crimes was consistently longer than most criminals received for unspeakable acts of violence, more than for assault, for rape or for murder.”