The graying man steps inside his stark cell in the largest federal prison complex in America. He wears special medical boots because of a foot condition that makes walking feel as if he's "stepping on a needle." He has undergone tests for a suspected heart condition and sometimes experiences vertigo.
"I get dizzy sometimes when I'm walking," says the 63-year-old inmate, Bruce Harrison. "One time, I just couldn't get up."
In 1994, Harrison and other members of the motorcycle group he belonged to were caught up in a drug sting by undercover federal agents, who asked them to move huge volumes of cocaine and marijuana. After taking the job, making several runs and each collecting $1,000, Harrison and the others were arrested and later convicted. When their sentences were handed down, however, jurors objected.
"I am sincerely disheartened by the fact that these defendants, who participated in the staged off-loads and transports . . . are looking at life in prison or decades at best," said one of several who wrote letters to the judge and prosecutor.
In recent years, federal sentencing guidelines have been revised, resulting in less severe prison terms for low-level drug offenders. But Harrison, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, remains one of tens of thousands of inmates who were convicted in the "war on drugs" of the 1980s and 1990s and who are still behind bars.
Harrison's crammed cell at the Federal Correctional Complex Coleman in Florida near Orlando is devoid of the clutter of life on the outside. The space he shares with another inmate has only a sink, a toilet, a bunk bed with cots, a steel cabinet, two plastic gray chairs, a desk and a bulletin board with a postcard of a Florida waterspout.
From a tiny window, he can see Spanish moss draped over trees in the distance.
Forty-five years ago, Harrison served with the Marines in Vietnam. A machine gunner, he was shot twice and was awarded two Purple Hearts. When he came back, he felt as though he had nowhere to turn. He later joined a motorcycle group known as the Outlaws.
Today, prisoners age 50 and older represent the fastest-growing population in federal correctional facilities.
Harrison was approached by an undercover agent who was part of a law enforcement team trying to bring down the group, which had been suspected of illegal activity. He and fellow members of the club were offered a kilogram of cocaine to offload and transport drugs. He declined, saying none of them wanted to be paid in drugs.
"I didn't want drugs, because I really wouldn't have known what to do with them," Harrison said in an interview. "We didn't sell them."
But Harrison and the others took the job because the agents offered cash, and they needed the money. Over a period of several months, they would move what they believed to be real drugs more than 1,400 kilos of cocaine and about 3,200 pounds of marijuana.
Harrison carried a gun for protection during two of the offloads. He didn't use it, but after authorities arrested him and fellow members of his group, he was charged with possessing a firearm while committing a drug offense.
His 1995 trial in Tampa lasted four months. His lawyer at the time argued that "this was a government operation from beginning to end. . . . Everything was orchestrated by the government. . . . He was not a leader. The only leaders in this case, the only organizers in this case was the United States government."
The jury, nonetheless, found Harrison and the others guilty of transporting the drugs.
Harrison was sentenced to roughly 24 years for possessing cocaine and marijuana with the intent to distribute. The conviction on the firearms charge carried a 25-year penalty, meaning he is effectively serving a life sentence.
"I am sincerely disheartened"
"There's no doubt that that's a harsh penalty," said U.S. District Judge Susan C. Bucklew during the sentencing hearing. "But that's what the statute says, and I don't think I have any alternative but to do that."
"I don't have a whole lot of discretion here," she said at another point.
After Harrison and the others were sentenced, several of the jurors expressed shock to learn how long those convicted were to spend behind bars.
"If I would have been given the right to not only judge the facts in this case, but also the law and the actions taken by the government, the prosecutor, local and federal law enforcement officers connected in this case would be in jail and not the defendants," juror Patrick L. McNeil wrote.
Six jurors signed a letter requesting a new trial be ordered, saying that if they had been told by the court that they could have found that the government had entrapped the defendants, they would have found them not guilty.
"Bruce Harrison had never been involved in unloading drugs," said his current lawyer, Tom Dawson. "He didn't arrange for any of these drugs. The government did."
Andrea Strong, a childhood friend of Harrison, said he doesn't claim to have been a saint.
"But, in a compassionate world, this man would not be less than halfway through a sentence for a drug offense that happened 20 years ago," Strong said.. "He would've done his time, paid his debt to society, and be released to his network of supportive family and friends."
Along with tens of thousands of other inmates around the country, Harrison is applying for clemency under the Obama administration's program to release drug offenders who have been in prison for at least 10 years and whose cases meet certain criteria.
"If I got out, I'd go back home and be with my three grandkids and help them out," Harrison said.
Excerpts from "Aging population takes toll on U.S. prisons", by Sari Horwitz, Washington Post; photos by Nikki Kahn.
