President Bartlet Has A Message For Congress About Drug Sentencing

By Paige Lavender for the Huffington Post. 

President Bartlet is back with a message for Congress about mandatory minimum sentences.

Bartlet, a fictional president from the show "The West Wing" who is played by actor Martin Sheen, highlights the cost of mandatory minimum sentences for low-level offenders in a new video released by Brave New Films. The video pushes Congress to pass the Smarter Sentencing Act, which would reform the nation's mandatory minimum statutes, authorizing federal judges to sentence drug defendants to less time behind bars than what current law requires.

"A basic principle of justice is that the punishment should fit the crime," Sheen says as Bartlet in the video. "Mandatory minimums undermine that principle by forcing judges to ignore individual circumstances."