[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 123 (Wednesday, August 24, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 24, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                             THE CRIME BILL

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I listened with interest to the remarks of 
the majority leader. I also listened to the statement by the minority 
leader in which he indicated we should have a debate and then vote, as 
he said. I think it is important to point out he was not saying let us 
vote on the crime bill. If there were a vote on the crime bill, clearly 
the crime bill would pass the Senate and we would have a crime bill 
signed by the President very quickly.
  What he was saying is let us vote on a point of order that they 
intend to make, a point of order, I might add, that was not made--
although it was available and called to everyone's attention--when the 
bill originally passed the Senate.
  The point of order now will serve as a device to require 60 votes to 
advance the crime bill--under the guise of objecting to the spending in 
the crime bill. As the majority leader has just pointed out, that is a 
specious argument indeed.
  In fact, much of the spending that was added in the conference was 
added at the request of the people on the Republican side of the aisle 
for more prisons and for the provisions that get tough with criminals. 
The fact is the average expenditure per year in the 6-year conference 
report is less than the average expenditure per year in the 5-year bill 
that passed the Senate by a vote of 95 to 4.
  This debate is like a bad migraine headache. It goes on and on and 
on, and the folks on the other side stand up and protest, ``Gee, we are 
ready to vote. We want to move ahead. We are not obstructionists. We do 
not oppose anything.''
  Of course they do. What is this all about? It is because they simply 
do not want the crime bill to pass--for a number of reasons. And they 
construct these Byzantine arguments to suggest that it spends too much, 
and that there is a point of order that is of significant importance to 
us.
  Part of the reason it spends more than they would like is that they 
demanded the spending. The point of order was in front of them before 
and they said the point of order did not matter. In fact, they say, the 
very financing device that enables us to make a point of order is one 
that we helped create. Of course it was really a creation of the 
President pro tempore of this body--and a good one, because it said 
that if we are going to do something in the crime bill we should pay 
for it.
  We found a way to pay for it--by reducing substantially the number of 
Federal employees, which we were going to do and have done. We are 
going to use the savings from that reduction to pay for things we need 
to make this country a safer place.
  On the other side of the aisle, when they realized that this 
innovative device was in fact fiscal conservatism--it was pay-as-you-
go, it was do important things that need doing but pay for them while 
you do them--they not only embraced it, several of them helped claim 
authorship. Which is fine. But now, to come and say this gives us 
heartburn and causes us to not want the bill to advance, is a little 
disingenuous in my judgment.
  But that is not why I came to the Senate floor. I came here to 
mention some very important things in this crime bill and call them to 
the attention of my colleagues.
  We have heard about ``three strikes and you're out.'' We are building 
more prison space to keep violent criminals in jail. We are being 
smarter in how we address prison space because we recognize that almost 
50 percent of the people in prison are nonviolent. You do not need the 
most secure prison cell for these nonviolent offenders. You can put 
them, as Senator Glenn and I successfully urged when we first passed 
the bill, in lower-security prisons, in Quonset huts with wire 
perimeters and so on, and open up the prison cells for hardened 
criminals. To put violent criminals there and keep them there.
  Two of my provisions included in this bill are especially important. 
They probably never will get much notice, but they are very important.
  One of them, a sense-of-the-Senate resolution already passed by the 
Senate in November, said: Victims or victims' families should be able 
to present testimony prior to sentencing or parole of convicted 
criminals.
  Do you know what happens with criminals? A criminal can commit the 
most heinous crime you can imagine. When he comes to court, they put a 
nice necktie on him and a brand new suit and he looks like he just 
stepped out of the church choir. They bring in the minister, they bring 
in the neighbor, they bring in the grocer, bring in the barber and say 
what a wonderful, wonderful young man this is. I want the victim or the 
victim's family to be present to give testimony that says: ``You might 
think this was a wonderful young person, but let me describe the crime 
scene to you, and what it did to me, what it did to our family, and 
what it means to us.'' That ought to be part of the sentencing and it 
ought to be part of parole hearings.
  Another amendment I authored in this bill will eliminate the 
automatic presumption that gives every prisoner in the Federal system 
automatic good time credit against their sentences. Violent offenders 
should not get good time credit, in my judgment. Those who commit 
violent crimes should be sent to prison and they should stay in prison 
until the end of their sentence. Does it cost us more? You bet it does. 
But those who talk about this as a financial burden are ignoring the 
cost shifting that happens when you let a violent offender out early to 
work his or her will on the streets and commit more violent crimes. The 
cost shift is to the victims of those additional violent crimes 
committed while that person should have been in jail.
  Let me give a couple of examples. The people I will mention were not 
sentenced in the Federal system, but they are typical of what is 
happening all across this country.
  A fellow named Henry ``Little Man'' James. I will never forget 
reading about him. A woman named Patricia Lexie was driving home with 
her husband on road here in Washington, DC, at 10:30 at night after 
visiting friends. She was just driving along, and a car pulls up beside 
them, a fellow pulls out a pistol and shoots Patricia Lexie in the head 
and kills her. Just like that.
  It turns out it is a fellow named Henry ``Little Man'' James. He had 
been in jail just days before on an attempted murder charge, as a 
matter of fact, and was let out on $10,000 bond. It does not take Dick 
Tracy to follow somebody like this, to find out who is committing 
violent crimes. This is someone who was in the system but was let back 
out on the streets to come up behind another car, point a pistol at 
Patricia Lexie's head, and kill her--because, he said to his friends in 
the car, ``I feel like killing someone,'' it was reported in the 
papers.
  Another very high-profile crime last year was the killing of 
basketball star Michael Jordan's father. The only reason I single out 
this crime is because it was of a higher profile than most crimes. If 
you look into it, as I did, it is not any different than most violent 
crimes.
  There are two suspects in that murder. One is Daniel Green. Someone 
we did not know? Someone who was a surprise to us? Oh, no. Like many in 
the criminal justice system, Daniel Green had a violent record. 
Sentenced to 6 years in prison after assaulting another boy with an ax. 
Two years later, with good time credits and parole, he was out.
  The other accused murderer was Martin Demery, who was with Daniel 
Green. Before he allegedly killed James Jordan, he had been indicted 
for clubbing a 61-year-old store clerk with a cinder block--he put her 
into a coma--while robbing a market. Eight months after his indictment, 
he was still free on bond, even though he had failed to appear in court 
for a hearing.
  These are the two people who are alleged to have killed Michael 
Jordan's father. Strangers to the system? Oh, no. People who had been 
in the system, people law enforcement officials knew, people who had 
been indicted, had been charged, had been convicted, had been sent to 
prison, and then found their way through the revolving door back to the 
streets again to victimize another innocent American.
  This legislation, this crime bill, in a very significant way leads 
the way across this country to say ``three strikes and you're out.'' 
For those criminals who have decided crime is a career, for those who 
have decided, ``Victimizing Americans with violent crime, that is my 
life, that is my occupation,'' this bill says to them ``Then you pursue 
your occupation behind a prison door because we are going to find you, 
we are going to prosecute you, we are going to put you in jail, and for 
the first time you are going to stay in jail.'' That is what this crime 
bill does.
  It is not perfect. There are some things in it I would rather not see 
in it. But I am really tired of people taking a look at the best crime 
bill in the last decade, which moves us in the right direction in 
fighting violent crime, going out and finding ``Moses'' to put him on 
television to talk about the pork in this bill.
  The fact is, if Charlton Heston thinks giving treatment to those 
addicted to drugs is pork, then he does not understand anything about 
fighting crime. You cannot put someone who is addicted to drugs back on 
the streets with that drug addiction, because they will commit another 
crime within a half an hour. They must feed their drug addiction.
  We have several million people addicted to drugs in this country but 
only several hundred thousand slots for them to get drug addiction 
treatment. On the streets of this city, people will show up today and 
ask for drug addiction treatment and they will be told, ``We do not 
have an opening. There is a waiting list.''
  What will they do to feed their addiction today? They will find some 
innocent American somewhere and they will commit a heinous crime. We 
must, it seems to me, get tough with hardened criminals, and we must at 
the same time understand what causes crime, including drug addiction, 
and dedicate some resources to dealing with drug addiction.
  That is why I rise today simply to say this crime bill is a good 
bill. We ought to pass it. We should not make excuses any longer. It 
has been through the House, it has been through the Senate, it has been 
through a bipartisan process. I would say to my colleagues on the other 
side: No more excuses, let us pass this crime bill and get it done for 
the American people.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. 
Kennedy].

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