Whitaker the drug warrior

Raeanna Woody’s crimes hardly seemed like they would add up to a life sentence in prison. She had two nonviolent drug convictions, for possessing marijuana and delivering 12 grams of methamphetamine. But when she was arrested in a third drug case, she said, the office of U.S. Attorney Matthew G. Whitaker decided to make an example of her.

Under Whitaker, who is now acting attorney general, Woody was given a choice: spend the rest of her life in jail, or accept a plea bargain sentence of 21 to 27 years, according to court records. She took the deal.

Judge Robert W. Pratt in the Southern District of Iowa later accused federal prosecutors of having “misused” their authority in Woody’s nonviolent case. He urged President Barack Obama to commute her sentence — and Obama did shorten her term, after she had served 11 years.

Woody’s case highlights one of the most controversial if little-known aspects of Whitaker’s ­career: his efforts to obtain unusually stiff sentences for people accused of drug crimes.

Whitaker spent nearly five years as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa. His office was more likely than all but one other district in the United States to use its authority to impose the harshest sentences on drug offenders, according to a finding by a different Iowa federal judge, Mark W. Bennett, who called it a “deeply troubling disparity.”