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Feature Story:
Baseball Legend Willie Mays Aikens Released Under Retroactivity
Amendment
Willie Mays Aikens, former first baseman for
the Kansas City Royals, made baseball history when he became the first
player to have a pair of two-homer games in the 1980 World Series. Years
later he made another kind of history when a longstanding addiction to
cocaine ended his baseball career and ultimately led to a nearly 21-year
sentence for selling crack cocaine to an undercover officer. Finally, in
2008, he again made headlines when a federal judge reduced his lengthy
prison term to 14 years as a result of the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s
recent adjustment to the crack cocaine sentencing guidelines. Aikens was
released in June.
“They used my
case as an example to show that crack sentencing was cruel and unusual
punishment,” said Aikens in an interview with WHNS-TV in South Carolina.
“I’m glad that after spending 14 years in prison, something good came
out of this.”
Sentencing reform
advocates utilized Aikens’ story to illustrate the unjust sentencing and
racial disparities between crack and powder cocaine. After being
convicted of attempting to purchase cocaine in 1983, his addiction
eventually led to his suspension from major league baseball. He returned
to Kansas City, after playing ball in Mexico, but continued to battle
his addiction, which was quickly ruining his personal life as it had
done his baseball career.
Kansas
City authorities were aware of Aikens' involvement with drugs. In
December 1993, a female undercover officer established a friendship with
Aikens and subsequently asked him to obtain crack cocaine for her on
several occasions. On at least one occasion, the undercover officer
specifically asked him to cook powder cocaine into crack
cocaine.
Entrapment and
Mandatory Minimums
With this evidence, the U.S.
Attorney's office charged Aikens with multiple counts of trafficking
crack cocaine. Because of harsher sentencing penalties for using and
dealing crack, his sentence for selling 2.2 ounces of crack cocaine was
treated as though equivalent to selling 15 pounds of powder
cocaine.
Aikens received a
mandatory guideline sentence of 248 months in prison. Had the drug
charges against him involved a similar amount of powder cocaine, Aikens
would have been sentenced to about 27 months for the drug offense, plus
an additional five years because the officer observed a shotgun at his
residence.
Rebuilding His
Life
Now 53 years old, Aikens has demonstrated remarkable progress in
his rehabilitation. While incarcerated, he completed a 500-hour drug
treatment program and established an exemplary record of good conduct.
He maintained contact with his family including his two daughters, Lucia
and Nicole. While in prison Aikens missed high school graduations and
that celebratory moment when Nicole received an academic scholarship to
Grinnell College in Iowa. But after his June 4 release, he has a second
chance at fatherhood. He’s also already begun the hunt for employment –
hoping to return to the ranks of baseball in some
capacity.
“I’m in a better frame
of mind,” Aikens told the Kansas City
Star. “I have a spiritual life now
that I didn’t have before. I just look forward to being able to get out
of prison and go out with those things and be able to live my life like
I’m supposed to live it.”
Aikens
also kept in contact with his former teammates, coaches and friends
including Cal Ripken, Jr., legendary baseball Hall of Famer, who, in
November 2005, urged the Pardons Attorney at the Department of Justice
to grant Aikens clemency. Ripken wrote in his letter to the Pardons Attorney:
“[T]his man[Willie] who overcame poverty in childhood,
[who] rose to fame as a professional athlete, who came so close to
ruining his life with drugs and who has now set his feet on the path to
recovery….has paid a heavy price for his self-destructive behavior.
Willie should not be required to pay such a high price for the crime
involved here, involving no-violence against others and no damage to
anyone but Aikens himself.”
Aikens
also asked for clemency from President Clinton and was waiting on a
request addressed to President Bush.
“I’ve always had hope something would happen with my case,”
Aikens told The State (Columbia, S.C.)
newspaper.
Zerline Jennings is the communications associate for
The Sentencing Project. The Sentencing Project is a criminal justice
research and advocacy organization based in Washington, DC. She can be
contacted at zjennings@sentencingproject.org.
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