[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 149 (Wednesday, December 6, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11658-S11660]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          EARLY PRISON RELEASE

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, on November 23 the Washington Post had a 
story about a murderer that I want to call to my colleagues' attention. 
This is the picture of the alleged murderer, Elmer Spencer, Jr. The 
headline of the story reads: ``Sex Offender's Arrest Makes an Issue of 
Mandatory Release.''
  Let me describe for a moment what I read in the story and how I 
related it to things I have spoken about on the floor of the Senate 
before and how disappointed I am that nothing ever seems to change.
  The young boy who was murdered a couple of weeks ago was a 9-year-old 
from Frederick, MD. His name was Christopher Lee Ausherman. He attended 
fourth grade at the South Frederick Elementary School. He had two 
brothers. The story said he liked Pokemon cards and was developing a 
real passion for fishing. He was apparently in his neighborhood, very 
close to his home on the street or sidewalk, and then a maintenance 
found his badly beaten, naked body in a dugout at McCurdy Field in 
Frederick, MD. Christopher Lee Ausherman had been sexually assaulted 
and strangled.
  The story described how the arrest was made. I want to talk about the 
fellow who has been arrested and charged with this murder. The fact 
that he was on the streets in this country to murder anyone is 
unconscionable and shameful.
  Elmer Spencer, Jr. was sentenced to 5 years for assault and battery 
in 1977, 23 years ago, and released 3 years later. Within a year of his 
release, he raped and attempted to strangle an 11-year-old boy. He paid 
him $20 to drink liquor and then tried to strangle him with shoelaces. 
Spencer left him unconscious after raping him. The boy regained 
consciousness as Elmer Spencer's attention was diverted, and 
miraculously escaped. Elmer Spencer was sentenced to 22 years in prison 
for that crime and released in 1994 after serving 14 years in prison.
  In 1996, Elmer Spencer, Jr. was charged with attempted rape and three 
counts of assault. He attacked the police officers responding to the 
cries for help from a woman whom he was attempting to rape. He was 
sentenced to 10 years, and, amazingly, released on November 14 of this 
year, after serving just 3 and a half years.
  Five days later, Christopher Lee Ausherman, a 9-year-old boy from 
Frederick, MD, was murdered by this man. Five days after being released 
from prison, having served 3 and a half years of 10-year sentence, this 
pedophile, this man who had attempted murder previously, killed this 9-
year-old boy.
  The question is, When will we learn in this country? We know who is 
committing the crimes, especially the violent crimes, in most cases. It 
is someone who has committed other violent crimes, been put in prison, 
and often released early.

[[Page S11659]]

  I spoke to the family of this 9-year-old boy. There is not much you 
can do to console that family. They are grieving, obviously, for the 
loss of this young boy. But I told them some Members are working very 
hard to try to change the circumstances of release for violent 
prisoners.
  I have spoken many times on this floor about other crimes that are 
exactly the same--different victims, but exactly the same. Young 
Bettina Pruckmayr--I brought her picture to the floor of this Senate--a 
26-year-old human rights attorney who moved to this town with such 
great expectations and passion to do work in this area. On December 16, 
1995, she was at an ATM machine and a man named Leo Gonzales Wright 
apprehended her there. He was a man who should have been in prison. He 
had committed many previous crimes.

  At the age of 19, Leo Gonzales Wright was sentenced to 15 to 60 years 
for armed robbery and murder. He was released after 17 years. During 
those 17 years, he compiled a record of 38 disciplinary reports and 
transfers due to drug use, lack of program involvement, weapons 
possession in prison, and assaults on inmates and staff. Despite all 
that, he was let out early, so that in December of 1995 he was on the 
streets here in Washington, DC. He was able to stab young Bettina 
Pruckmayr 38 times. It wasn't that we didn't know he was a violent 
offender. He had used a butcher knife just four days earlier to rob and 
carjack a female motorist. While on probation and parole, he was picked 
up for drugs and let right back out on the streets. As a result, 
Bettina Pruckmayr was killed.
  Jonathan Hall. I have spoken about Jonathan Hall here on the floor of 
the Senate; it is exactly the same story. Jonathan was a 13-year-old 
from Fairfax, VA. The boy had some difficulties, but in the newspaper 
stories I read about young Jonathan neighbors described him as a smart 
young boy, starved for affection. His mother reported him missing in 
December, 1995. Twelve days later, his body was found at the bottom of 
a pond near his home. He had been stabbed over 60 times with a 
phillips-head screwdriver. After this young boy had died, they found 
grass between his fingers. Despite being stabbed 60 times, he was not 
dead when his attacker left him. This young boy tried to claw his way 
out of that pond, and they found grass and mud between his fingers, but 
he didn't make it. James Buck Murray, who lived right there in the 
neighborhood, killed him. Why was he living there? In 1970, Murray was 
sentenced to 20 years for slashing the throat of a cab driver, stealing 
the cab, and leaving the driver for dead. But a mere 3 years later, 
while on work-releasee, he abducted a woman, was convicted of 
kidnapping, and sent back to prison. But again he was let out. And then 
young Jonathan Hall, of course, was murdered. By someone we knew? Of 
course. By someone violent? Of course. Murray had been put in prison 
and released early.

  Shame on those who run our prison system. Shame on the laws that 
exist, that allow this to happen.
  I have asked, in this recent case in Maryland with Christopher Lee 
Ausherman, how could it be that a man who has been involved in such 
violent crimes--how could it be that, when sentenced to 10 years, he is 
released after 3\1/2\? This is after many other crimes, mind you, and 5 
days after his release, he kills a 9-year-old boy. How can it be he is 
released that early?
  The answer? Unforgivable ignorance in the construction of public 
policy. I am sorry to say that about those who did it, but I cannot 
contain myself. Those who did it say those who served in prison for 
previous convictions can accumulate additional good-time credits at an 
accelerated pace against their current sentence because they have been 
in prison before. That is ignorance. We ought not reward anyone with 
ample or better good-time benefits because they served in prison 
before. Violent offenders ought to be put in prison and that ought to 
be their address until the end of their prison term. End of story.
  I am so sick and tired of reading stories about innocent people--and 
I have mentioned just three. I have many more. I am so sick and tired 
of reading the stories about state governments that allow violent 
offenders out of prison to walk up and down the streets of this country 
and kill again.
  Do you know, if you live in the United States of America you are 
seven times more likely to be murdered than if you live in France? The 
murder rate in our country is 7 times that of Germany, 6 times that of 
Israel, 10 times that of Japan, 7 times that of Spain. Is there 
something wrong here? I think so.
  Let me show you what is happening in our prison system. For all the 
talk about truth in sentencing, if state convicts you of murder in this 
country on average you are going to be in prison 10 years. You are 
going to get sentenced for 21 years but you are going to be serving 
about 10 years in prison for murder. Rape? You can expect to serve 
about 5 years in prison. They will sentence you to 10 on average, but 
you are only going to be there about 5. For robbery you are going to be 
sentenced to a littel over 8 years, perhaps, and you will serve 4 
years.
  What is the answer to all this? Why are these folks let out early? 
Why would we decide in this country that a murderer should only serve 
half of his or her sentence? The prison authorities and others who 
construct these laws tell us the reason they have to dangle good-time 
benefits in front of these prisoners, including violent offenders, is 
because it allows the authorities to better manage them while in 
prison. In other words, if they behave while in prison they can get out 
early. That is a terrific incentive, they say, for prison inmate 
management.
  I wonder, I ask the question about the management of Elmer Spencer, 
Jr. I wonder if I could get names of the people who decided the best 
way to manage Elmer Spencer, Jr.'s time in prison was to dangle in 
front of him the opportunity to be released 7 years early, so he could 
be on the streets in late November of this year and murder a 9-year-old 
boy? I guess the word is ``allegedly murdered him'' because he is now 
charged with the crime, but am told there is little question about the 
guilt in this case.
  I wonder if we could have the names of those who have decided it is 
appropriate for James ``Buck'' Murray to be on the streets, or Leo 
Gonzales Wright to be on the streets after being convicted of murder, 
only to murder again; violent criminals to be back on the streets so 
Bettina and young Jonathan and all the others are victims.

  What is the answer? The answer is simple. This is not rocket science. 
It is simple. It is to decide as a policy--as I have advocated for some 
while, regrettably unsuccessfully--that in this country we distinguish 
between those who commit violent crimes and those who commit nonviolent 
crimes. In my judgment, we ought to have a judicial system in America 
that says: If you commit a violent act, understand this. All over 
America, understand this and listen well: If you commit a violent act, 
there will be no good time, there will be no parole, there will be no 
time off for good behavior. You will go to prison and the sentence 
administered by the judge in your trial will be the sentence that you 
serve in prison. No time off for good behavior--period.
  We need to do that in this country. I have tried and tried and tried 
again in this Senate to advance that public policy, unsuccessfully. But 
I am not going to quit. This 106th Congress is ending without great 
distinction. We didn't even discuss the issue of violent crime. We 
should. I hope we will in the 107th Congress. I hope perhaps there are 
Republicans and Democrats who understand that there is nothing partisan 
about this issue. But there is a crying need in this country to decide 
that violent offenders must be put away and kept away for their entire 
term of incarceration.
  In 1991, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found there were 156,000 
people in State prisons for offenses that they committed while they 
were on parole from a previous conviction.
  Let me say that again because it is important: 156,000 people were 
incarcerated for criminal offenses that they committed while they were 
out on parole from a previous prison sentence.
  That is exactly the case in the description of the murder I started 
with today. It is exactly the case with Elmer Spencer, Jr., out early 
and a 9-year-old is dead. This is not an unusual story. I could speak 
for 2 hours and more, and not just about Maryland or Virginia or the 
District of Columbia. There is a courageous young woman

[[Page S11660]]

from North Dakota named Julie Schultz. Julie Schultz is a friend of 
mine, a mother of three from Burlington, ND. She was going to a League 
of Cities meeting in Williston, ND, on a quiet North Dakota highway on 
an afternoon with very little traffic and stopped at a rest stop. At 
this rest stop Julie Schultz, mother of three, encountered a man named 
Gary Wayne Puckett, who should have been in prison but was released 
early in the State of Washington. This issue knows no State boundaries. 
He assaulted Julie Schultz and then slit her throat and left her for 
dead.
  I won't describe the events that allowed her to survive, but they 
were quite miraculous. But Gary Wayne Puckett should never have been 
near a rest stop on a highway in North Dakota on that day. He was 
released early.
  Again, we know better than that. State governments should know better 
than that. Public policy should know better than that. We can do better 
than that.
  It is my intention to reintroduce in the coming Congress, in January 
in the coming Congress, legislation that I have introduced previously. 
That is legislation that would provide financial penalties in the 
truth-in-sentencing grants that are given from the Federal Government 
to the State government, for those States that fail to enact laws that 
eliminate good-time credits, eliminate the dangling of time off for 
good behavior. My legislation will use these funds to provide financial 
incentives for states that say, instead, by statute: If you are 
convicted of a violent crime, understand your address will be your jail 
cell until the end of your term.
  When and if we do that in this country, finally, innocent people 
walking up and down the streets of America will not be threatened by a 
violent murderer, a kidnaper, a killer, a rapist, someone who is let 
out early, and poses a severe threat to innocent citizens like 
Christopher Lee Ausherman.
  Mr. President, my understanding is the Senate is now in morning 
business but there will be additional debate on bankruptcy; is that 
correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. At the conclusion of the Senator's remarks, 
Senator Grassley will be recognized to speak on the bankruptcy bill.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, as soon as Senator Grassley comes to the 
floor, I will be happy to relinquish the floor. I want to speak for 2 
minutes on another subject. As soon as he comes, I will suspend.

                          ____________________