President Obama announced Wednesday that he would grant clemency to 214 federal inmates serving prison terms under outdated or unduly harsh sentencing laws, including a Whitefish man serving a life term for a drug offense.
Douglas George Jensen was sentenced in 2004 after he was convicted of transporting 1.67 pounds of methamphetamine into the Flathead Valley with intent to distribute.
Because he had two prior drug convictions, Jensen was given a life term by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy of Missoula.
Under Obama’s commutation grant, the man’s prison sentence will expire on Aug. 3, 2018, on the condition that he enrolls in a residential drug treatment program.
The commutations on Wednesday marked the largest single-day grant in the nation’s history
The president’s clemency power can take the form of a pardon, which gives the offender full legal forgiveness for their crimes, and a commutation, which shortens prison sentences but often leaves other conditions intact.
Under Jensen’s commutation, he will continue to have supervised release.
According to records, Jensen was arrested in 2003 after police stopped his station wagon while checking a report of a reckless driver on U.S. 93. Whitefish police and members of the Northwest Drug Task Force obtained a search warrant for his vehicle, and discovered methamphetamine concealed in plastic containers attached to the underside of his car with magnets and tape. The packaging was doused in cayenne pepper to disguise the scent from drug-sniffing dogs.
The value of the illegal stimulant found on Jensen’s car was estimated at $75,000.
Because of the amount of methamphetamine, his case was prosecuted in federal court, rather than state district court. Federal court penalties can be greater than those in state court.
To date, the president has used his constitutional clemency power to shorten the sentences of more federal inmates than any president since Calvin Coolidge.