“The only thing was ‘How tough can we be?'” says Eric Sterling, who helped draft the bill as counsel for the House Judiciary Committee and now heads the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation. In 1986, with the crack epidemic ravaging big cities, Congress passed the federal Anti-Drug Abuse Act that imposed mandatory minimums for nearly all drugs. State and federal lawmakers, fed up with rising crime rates, increasing street violence and growing concerns about drug abuse, responded with new fixed, severe sentences. In the 1970s and 1980s, the “war on drugs” had escalated. The kingpin and supplier, a two-time drug felon who cooperated and testified against Walker, served about five years.īy the time Walker was sentenced, the nation was already reassessing two decades of stiff, punitive drug laws. Sentencing guidelines added years for aggravating factors, including his organizing role and the quantity of drugs. Walker, later described by the judge as a middleman in the ring, was the only one to receive life. When a public defender took over, the window for requesting a plea had closed. Then his lawyer withdrew because of a conflict of interest. Unaware he faced life, he went to trial, despite overwhelming evidence against him. He didn’t cooperate with authorities, he says, because he didn’t want his friends to suffer. Nabbed as part of a drug conspiracy in 1996, Walker saw his troubles quickly worsen. He became part of a loose-knit ring, sometimes selling drugs, sometimes enlisting others, mostly childhood friends. You’re never going to get caught.”īy his late teens, when his family moved to Arizona, Walker began trafficking marijuana, meth and LSD back to Illinois, where he funneled his profits into his $350-to-$400-a-week meth habit. “Scott was a very strong-willed young man,” says Keith Shelton, his stepfather. He played guitar in a band, and drugs, he says, were an accessory to his rock-‘n’-roll lifestyle. Growing up in southern Illinois, Walker started using marijuana around age 14, then graduated to meth. “You feel like you’re invincible, that you’re never going to grow old,” says Walker, who looks a decade younger than 42. Walker attributes his drug dealing to immaturity and recklessness. “I believe everyone deserves a second chance.” Walker says he knows he should have paid a price for what he did.īut, “Is there mercy for people who have made mistakes?” he asks, sitting in federal prison here in southern Illinois. The trickiest question: How do you make sure the punishment fits the crime?
Scott Walker’s story reflects a debate over decades of get-tough laws that have jammed America’s prisons with drug offenders and produced a growing outcry for sentencing reform.