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Measure 11 too harsh, vigil participants say By Jessica Smith of the Mail Tribune Peter Millard was just 17 years old when he took another boy's life in a 1996 gang shooting. And under Measure 11's mandatory sentencing laws, he'll spend 25 years paying for his crime. "I'm not soft on crime. I know my son should be in prison -- he did a horrible thing," Millard's mother, Angel DeShane, said Saturday at a candlelight vigil held by a local group that wants to repeal the 1994 law. "But he was a kid who made a mistake when he was 17. And we have to put that in perspective with throwing his life away," DeShane said. "It's a harsh law." DeShane and about 50 others gathered Saturday outside the Jackson County Justice Building. Candlelight covered in plastic-cup votives flickered as vigil participants sang Christmas carols and talked about the more than 2,500 Oregon inmates serving Measure 11 sentences. "I pray we can be an inspiration to those without their loved ones this year," Dee Gilson of Eagle Point said shortly after she led the group in a chorus of "Silent Night." Gilson and others said they not only wanted to show support for families broken apart by mandatory sentencing laws, but also to lend their voices to the Citizens to Reform Measure 11 committee, based in Portland. "I have a really hard time with this law even though I voted for it," said Joan Hall, a local Measure 11 repeal advocate and vigil organizer. "I voted for it because I thought we were going to put away repeat offenders." Instead, Hall and others contend that the law is working mostly to imprison first-time criminals. What's worse, they said, is that the law is used to jail children as young as 15. Measure 11 sets mandatory minimum sentences for specific crimes, and judges who have deviated from those sentences have been overruled by higher courts. Vigil participants said voters need to take another look at the law, which they argued doesn't give inmates incentives to better their lives since they have no hope of an early release. "One coat doesn't fit all, and that's what's been happening here," said Pamela Terry of Medford. Reform advocates are working to gather 75,000 signatures on petitions to place a repeal measure on the November 2000 ballot. Hall said the reform committee has gathered about 42,000 signatures. She said members of the group will be at the Rogue Valley Mall Dec. 18, 19 and 20 to circulate petitions. For more information, call (503) 491-0611. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA