On Wednesday, 24-year-old Emma Semler was sentenced to 21 years in federal prison for her frienda=80=99s overdose death. The Inquirera=80=99 s Jeremy Roebuck and Aubrey Whelan reported that in 2014, Emma met up with Jennifer Rose Werstler, a friend she had met in rehab. The two used heroin together in a bathroom of a restaurant in West Philadelphia. Jennifer overdosed and died. Emma, who brought the drugs and left the scene, was later charged by federal prosecutors and convicted of heroin distribution -- which has a mandatory minimum of 20 years if it involves a death. [continues 437 words]
Barbara Tillis isn't sure when she'll get to see her son, Corvain Cooper, again. Every few months for the past four years, Tillis, has driven five hours with her husband, daughter and Cooper's oldest daughter, making the trip from Rialto to the federal prison in Atwater, near Merced. They'd spend the day visiting and chatting, and guards would let each family member give Cooper exactly one hug. When the visit was over, they'd reluctantly pile into the car and drive home. [continues 2434 words]
President Trump's proposal to invoke the death penalty for drug traffickers is an idea that is, in the practical scheme of things, unworkable. It is also probably unconstitutional and obviously simplistic. It is a gimmick, not a policy. We need a policy. The president likes dramatic gestures for difficult problems - a ban on all potential terrorists, a big wall next to Mexico, a 25-percent tariff on steel. This is not an altogether bad instinct. We need strong, decisive leaders and criminals need to fear punishment. [continues 438 words]
In 2016 more people were arrested for marijuana possession than for all crimes the FBI classifies as violent, according to 2016 crime data released by the agency on Monday. Marijuana possession arrests edged up slightly in 2016, a year in which voters in four states approved recreational marijuana initiatives and voters in three others approved medical marijuana measures. These figures should be regarded as estimates, because not all law enforcement agencies provide detailed arrest information to the FBI. But they do show that the annual number of marijuana arrests is down from their peak in the mid-2000s and stands at levels last seen in the mid 1990s. Marijuana use, particularly among adults, rose during this time. [continues 446 words]
Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday called drug overdose deaths "the top lethal issue" in the U.S. and urged law enforcement and social workers to "create and foster a culture that's hostile to drug use." Sessions spoke to the annual conference of the National Alliance For Drug Endangered Children. He said preliminary data show nearly 60,000 overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2016, the highest ever. "Our current drug epidemic is indeed the deadliest in American history. We've seen nothing like it," said Sessions. [continues 143 words]
Seeking to crack down on the suppliers behind the state's lethal opioid crisis, Governor Charlie Baker on Wednesday filed a broad legislative package that would create a new manslaughter charge for drug dealers whose product causes a death. Under Baker's plan, dealers would face a mandatory minimum of five years for selling any drugs that result in a fatality. "When illegal drug distribution causes a death, laws that were designed to punish the act are inadequate to recognize the seriousness of the resulting harm," Baker wrote in a letter to state lawmakers in support of the legislation. "In order to ensure that accountability, this legislation establishes enhanced penalties that directly target those who cause death by illegally selling drugs." [continues 832 words]
I grew up in the 1980s, back when the "Just Say No" campaign was in full swing. I remember being prepared to fend off relentless peer pressure to do drugs, evil strangers offering what was not actually candy, and so forth. Then I grew up, and almost none of the scenarios I'd been taught in D.A.R.E. ever really came to pass. I still avoided drugs, mostly because of a combination of a good home life and an over-analytical brain. It wasn't as if drugs weren't around, though. I watched too many of my friends experiment with everything from speed to acid. No one ever pressured me to try it. It was simply there if you wanted to dive in. [continues 601 words]
On a cool, rainy day, more than 200 people crowd under a tarp in the parking lot of Big Mama's Restaurant, bidding on bicycles, air rifles and marijuana posters to raise money to support a jailed local legend. They have a lot of work to do, because Cornbread Mafia leader Johnny Boone, captured in Canada and returned to Kentucky after eight years as a fugitive, faces life in prison if convicted on his third strike, for growing 2,421 marijuana seedlings on a farm. In 29 states and the District of Columbia, marijuana is legal for recreational or medicinal purposes, or both. But the federal government, while giving a virtual free pass to growers in states where marijuana is legal, continues to seek long mandatory minimum penalties against defendants in Kentucky and other states where it is not. [continues 1276 words]
In Heather Mac Donald's "Mandatory Minimums Don't Deserve Your Ire" (op-ed, May 26) about mandatory minimum sentences (MMS), she writes that 10-year mandatory minimum prison sentences are only given to large-scale traffickers. In 2004 I was sentenced to 55 years in federal prison for selling $1,000 worth of marijuana while possessing a firearm. The judge who sentenced me called my punishment "unjust, cruel and even irrational" and compared it to the much shorter federal sentences given to repeat child rapists, murderers and even some terrorists. [continues 69 words]
Under federal law, anyone convicted of selling just five grams of methamphetamine-the weight of a nickel-is subject to a mandatory five-year prison term. Get caught buying or selling a second time, no matter how many years after your first offense, and you will be subject to a 10-year mandatory prison sentence. Ms. Mac Donald may pretend that mandatory sentences are reserved for the likes of El Chapo, but the truth is mandatory sentences are more often used against low-level offenders. Ninety-three percent of people who receive federal mandatory minimums played no leadership role in their crimes. There are lots of minnows and few sharks. There are simply no studies that show mandatory sentences reduce drug crime. Every dollar wasted on mandatory minimums is one that would be better invested in proven anticrime strategies like hiring more police officers and expanding substance abuse treatment. Kevin Ring President Families Against Mandatory Minimums Washington [end]
The fear conjured up by MMS is a prime motivator in the accused accepting a plea bargain. Even with a person who believes he is innocent, the downside is too great. There is something not right about destroying accepted historical precedent of the evaluation by a judge and jury, who have heard all the evidence and witnessed the character, arguments and demeanor of the prosecution and the accused, in favor of the wisdom of remote legislators stroked by the DAs looking for a bailout for their inability to earn a conviction on the merits. [continues 63 words]
Mandatory Minimums Don't Deserve Your Ire Jeff Sessions's policy won't lock up harmless stoners, but it will help dismantle drug-trafficking networks. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is being tarred as a racist-again-for bringing the law fully to bear on illegal drug traffickers. Mr. Sessions has instructed federal prosecutors to disclose in court the actual amount of drugs that trafficking defendants possessed at the time of arrest. That disclosure will trigger the mandatory penalties set by Congress for large-scale dealers. [continues 796 words]
When it comes to criminal justice, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a man out of time - stuck defiantly in the 1980s, when crime in America was high and politicians scrambled to out-tough one another by passing breathtakingly severe sentencing laws. This mind-set was bad enough when Mr. Sessions was a senator from Alabama working to thwart sentencing reforms in Congress. Now that he is the nation's top law enforcement officer, he's trying to drag the country backward with him, even as most states are moving toward more enlightened policies. [continues 426 words]
WASHINGTON - As a senator, Jeff Sessions was such a conservative outlier on criminal justice issues that he pushed other Republicans to the forefront of his campaign to block a sentencing overhaul, figuring they would be taken more seriously. Now Mr. Sessions is attorney general and need not take a back seat to anyone when it comes to imposing his ultratough-on-crime views. The effect of his transition from being just one of 535 in Congress to being top dog at the Justice Department was underscored on Friday when he ordered federal prosecutors to make sure they threw the book at criminal defendants and pursued the toughest penalties possible. [continues 880 words]
When Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week jettisoned an Obama administration policy that had been aimed at sparing less-serious drug offenders from harsh sentences, he called his new, more aggressive approach "moral and just." But the verdict among law-enforcement and legal professionals is more mixed. Government data, along with interviews with former U.S. attorneys who advised the Justice Department under President Barack Obama, suggest the previous policy achieved several, though not all, of its goals. Then-Attorney General Eric Holder announced the policy that was to be embodied in what became known as the "Holder memo" in a 2013 speech to the American Bar Association. Mr. Holder pledged that federal prosecutors would focus on more dangerous drug traffickers and avoid charging less-serious offenders with crimes that required long, mandatory-minimum sentences. Mandatory-minimum sentences, he said, had led to bloated, costly prisons and disproportionately ravaged minority communities. [continues 702 words]
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Jeff Sessions is expected to soon toughen rules on prosecuting drug crimes, according to people familiar with internal deliberations, in what would be a major rollback of Obama-era policies that would put his first big stamp on a Justice Department he has criticized as soft on crime. Mr. Sessions has been reviewing a pair of memos issued by his predecessor, Eric H. Holder Jr., who encouraged federal prosecutors to use their discretion in what criminal charges they filed, particularly when those charges carried mandatory minimum penalties. [continues 729 words]
Even as Gov. Nathan Deal was signing the latest batch of state laws designed to keep lower-level offenders out of prison, the Trump administration was preparing a crackdown seeking the toughest possible charges against offenders convicted of nonviolent drug violations. The U.S. Justice Department released directives Friday that call for more mandatory minimum sentences and direct prosecutors to pursue the strictest punishments available. It was a sweeping shift in criminal justice policy, reversing Obama-era policies to reduce penalties for some nonviolent offenses. [continues 52 words]
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered federal prosecutors to pursue the toughest possible charges and sentences against crime suspects, he announced Friday, reversing Obama administration efforts to ease penalties for some nonviolent drug violations. The drastic shift in criminal justice policy, foreshadowed during recent weeks, is Mr. Sessions's first major stamp on the Justice Department, and it highlights several of his top targets: drug dealing, gun crime and gang violence. In an eight-paragraph memo, Mr. Sessions returned to the guidance of President George W. Bush's administration by calling for more uniform punishments - including mandatory minimum sentences - and instructing prosecutors to pursue the harshest possible charges. Mr. Sessions's policy is broader than that of the Bush administration, however, and how it is carried out will depend more heavily on the judgments of United States attorneys and assistant attorneys general as they bring charges. [continues 843 words]
In a move expected to swell federal prisons, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is scuttling an Obama administration policy to avoid charging nonviolent, less-serious drug offenders with long, mandatory-minimum sentences. Mr. Sessions's new guidelines revive a policy created under President George W. Bush that tasked federal prosecutors with charging "the most serious readily provable offense." It is the latest and most significant step by the new administration toward dismantling President Barack Obama's criminal justice legacy. And it defies a trend in state capitals-including several led by conservative Republicans-toward recalibrating or abandoning the mandatory-minimum sentences popularized during the "war on drugs" of the 1980s and 1990s. [continues 820 words]
[photo] A cell at El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in Oklahoma. President Obama toured the prison last week. (Saul Loeb / AFP-Getty Images) A bipartisan push to reduce the number of low-level drug offenders in prison is gaining momentum in Congress, but proposals may disappoint advocates hoping to slash the mandatory minimum sentences that are seen as chiefly responsible for overcrowding in the nation's detention facilities. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) surprised advocates Thursday by saying he strongly supported holding a vote on a prison reform bill similar to one sponsored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, a moderate Republican from Wisconsin. The measure has been languishing in the House Judiciary Committee. [continues 694 words]
Joseph Tigano III is spending 20 years in prison for growing marijuana. He grew a lot of it. No one disputes that. And this was his second felony conviction. So no one, not even Tigano's lawyers, suggests the Cattaraugus County man should go unpunished. But 20 years? Even the federal judge who sentenced Tigano in 2015 thought it was too heavy a price to pay. "It is much greater than necessary," U.S. District Judge Elizabeth A. Wolford said at the time, "but I do not have a choice." [continues 1120 words]
In November 2012, people in Colorado and Washington voted to legalize marijuana for recreational use in their states. Nine months later, as the states worked out their local legal regimes, then-Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. issued a directive to law enforcement, urging them to let the states' experiments proceed. By the end of 2016, a batch of new states had legalized marijuana, and Holder himself was advocating for marijuana to be "rescheduled" -- meaning that penalties should be lowered for sale and possession across the country. [continues 977 words]
ALBANY - Gov. Andrew Cuomo is making another pitch for the state to decriminalize possession of some marijuana. Cuomo quietly included the proposal in a 380-page State of the State message that he provided late Wednesday to the state Legislature. "The illegal sale of marijuana cannot and will not be tolerated in New York state, but data consistently show that recreational users of marijuana pose little to no threat to public safety," is on Page 191 of Cuomo's message. The idea will again stoke a debate in Albany after the issue gained prominence in 2012 -- when the Democratic governor first made the push to decriminalize possession of marijuana. [continues 341 words]
Officials, former inmate contrast the emphasis on treatment vs. incarceration When Leola Bivins was first sent away for dealing drugs, she was a 22-year-old high school dropout with a 2-year-old daughter at home. Addiction was the center of the life she knew in East Stroudsburg, where she was born and raised, she recalled recently. Bivins' mother was a heroin addict - she eventually died of an overdose - and seemingly everyone around her was either selling drugs or abusing them, Bivins said. [continues 2766 words]
Imagine this: Upon taking his oath of office, President Donald Trump instructs his new attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to ignore civil rights laws. How would that go over? Before you yell, "But we are a nation of laws!" you can thank President Barack Obama and his prior Attorney General Eric Holder for magnifying this issue. Basically, the Obama administration made it standard operating procedure to ignore laws they thought unfashionable or unworthy. The best example of this is marijuana. To be clear at the outset, I am neither pro-pot nor anti-pot. And, in fact, marijuana is not even the issue - rather, the Constitution is. Marijuana is just the symptom that exposes the problem. [continues 754 words]
On Tuesday, President Obama commuted the sentences of 111 federal drug offenders. In his first term, Obama endured the sting of critics like me who called him one of the stingiest modern presidents when it comes to the presidential pardon power. In his second term, Obama is making up for lost time. With 673 commutations , the Washington Post reports , Obama has approached 690, the number of commutations issued by the previous 11 presidents. Obama deserves credit for doing the right thing. [continues 480 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama cut short on Tuesday the sentences of 111 federal inmates in another round of commutations for those convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. Obama has long called for phasing out strict sentences for drug convictions, arguing they lead to excessive punishment and incarceration rates unseen in other developed countries. White House Counsel Neil Eggleston said the commutations underscored the president's commitment to using his clemency authority to give deserving individuals a second chance. He said that Obama has granted a total of 673 commutations, more than the previous 10 presidents combined. More than a third of the recipients were serving life sentences. [continues 374 words]
Washington - As a college student in Virginia, Corey Jacobs started selling drugs with the help of a group of friends to make some extra money. A Bronx native, Mr. Jacobs was no kingpin, and no aspect of their drug conspiracy involved violence. Now age 46, Mr. Jacobs has served 16 years of a sentence of life without parole in the federal system. No question, Corey Jacobs should have gone to prison for his felony. But does he deserve to die there? [continues 1176 words]
I am deeply concerned about both Joan Vennochi's column ("Like Bill Clinton, I didn't inhale," July 12) and the political coalition that opposes the marijuana legalization initiative ("Mass. leaders join against marijuana legislation"). While decriminalization in Massachusetts has been a worthwhile and successful step in reducing the number of arrests for marijuana possession, it has not gone far enough. I have worked with the Committee for Public Counsel Services for many years, and found that police officers routinely charge people not only with possession, but with intent to distribute marijuana, which almost automatically adds in the school zone provision. Virtually everywhere in any urban area is within 1,000 feet of what is defined as a school zone. This brings felony conviction, mandatory minimum sentences, and the potential for total unemployability in the future, not to mention the harm that comes from prison time. It does so with no evidence that it accomplishes any positive purpose in the vast majority of those incarcerated, nor for society. [continues 123 words]
BURKEVILLE, Va. - Lenny Singleton is the first to admit that he deserved an extended stay behind bars. To fuel his crack habit back in 1995, he walked into 13 stores over eight days and either distracted a clerk or pretended to have a concealed gun before stealing from the cash register. One time, he was armed with a knife with a six-inch blade that he had brought from his kitchen. Mr. Singleton, 28 at the time, was charged with robbery and accepted a plea deal, fully expecting to receive a long jail sentence. But a confluence of factors worked against him, including the particularly hard-nosed judge who sentenced him and the zero-tolerance ethos of the time against users of crack cocaine. His sentence was very long: two life sentences. And another 100 years. And no possibility for parole. [continues 1146 words]
Case Sparked Debate Because of Mandatory 55-Year Sentence. Salt Lake City (AP) - A Utah music producer who was ordered to 55 years behind bars for bringing guns to marijuana deals has been set free, after 12 years in prison and national outcry over the mandatory minimum sentencing laws that forced a federal judge to impose the lengthy term. Weldon Angelos, 36, was freed Tuesday. He says he kept his release quiet for a few days because he wanted to spend time with his three teenage children, who were much younger when he was sentenced in 2004 at 24. [continues 283 words]
Lawmakers Mostly Agree That Congress Needs to Take Steps. The official confirmation of Prince's death by opioid overdose is likely to reverberate in Washington, where lawmakers are still trying to hammer out a deal on legislation attempting to stem a national crisis in abuse of those drugs. "No one is immune," Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, said in a statement. Portman is one of the main authors of the Senate legislation. "The heroin and prescription drug epidemic is devastating families and communities all over the country, and we need to get this bill to the president's desk as quickly as possible," he said. [continues 520 words]
President Obama granted clemency to 42 inmates Friday as part of an ongoing effort to release federal prisoners who are serving prison terms resulting from sentencing laws that the White House said were "outdated and unduly harsh." To date, Obama has commuted the sentences of 348 federal inmates. The White House said in a statement that the president will continue commuting the sentences of inmates through his seven remaining months in office. Half of the inmates on Friday's list had been sentenced to life for nonviolent drug offenses, according to the White House. [continues 475 words]
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama shortened the sentences Friday of 42 people serving time for drug-related offenses, continuing a push for clemency that has ramped up in the final year of his administration. Roughly half of the 42 receiving commutations Friday were serving life sentences. Most are nonviolent offenders, although a few were also charged with firearms violations. The White House said many of them would have already finished their sentences if they had been sentenced under current, less onerous sentencing guidelines. [continues 476 words]
More than 10,000 clemency applicants wake up every day in a federal prison, awaiting an answer from President Obama on whether their lengthy prison sentence will come to an end. Most of them will be crushed when they are eventually denied. There are a few, however, who will realize the unlikely and overwhelming joy of finally being released. I was one of those rare few whose name was on the list of Obama's recent clemency grants. And while I was excited to finally be going home - and extremely grateful to the president - I was also perplexed by those who weren't on the list. [continues 271 words]
Congress and President Obama are under pressure to reschedule marijuana. While rescheduling makes sense, it doesn't solve the state/federal conflict over marijuana (descheduling would be better). But more important, it wouldn't fix the broken scheduling system. Ideally, marijuana reform should be part of a broader bill rewriting the Controlled Substances Act. The Controlled Substances Act created a five-category scheduling system for most legal and illegal drugs (although alcohol and tobacco were notably omitted). Depending on what category a drug is in, the drug is either subject to varying degrees of regulation and control (Schedules II through V) - or prohibited, otherwise unregulated and left to criminals to manufacture and distribute (Schedule I). The scheduling of various drugs was decided largely by Congress and absent a scientific process - with some strange results. [continues 601 words]
The tomato seedlings in the urban garden were sprouting. The basketball court was filled with men in blue, gray, and brown uniforms shooting hoops and doing pushups. Inside, at vocational classes, men learned the art of tailoring a suit while a group of women studied toward their GEDs. In many ways, the South Bay House of Correction has become a microcosm of the country's evolving attitudes toward drug abuse and drug-related crimes. The facility just off Interstate 93 in Boston is a different place compared with the early 1990s, when leaders in Washington passed a stringent crime bill that authorized stiff penalties for drug crimes and nearly doubled the country's prison population. [continues 1055 words]
WASHINGTON - President Obama commuted the sentences of 58 nonviolent drug offenders on Thursday, the latest in a series of efforts to address what he has called the overly long and harsh sentences of an earlier era. Most of the prisoners whose sentences will be cut short were serving decades behind bars for drug possession and distribution, the result of a crackdown on drug-related crimes in the 1980s and '90s that affected many African-Americans and other minorities. The president has commuted the sentences of 306 individuals - more than his six most recent predecessors combined. But Mr. Obama said that his efforts alone were not enough. He urged members of Congress to keep working toward legislation that would change federal sentencing laws, particularly mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. [continues 187 words]
Congress and President Obama are under pressure to reschedule marijuana. While rescheduling makes sense, it doesn't solve the state/federal conflict over marijuana (de-scheduling would be better). But more important, it wouldn't fix the broken scheduling system. Ideally, marijuana reform should be part of a broader bill rewriting the Controlled Substances Act. The Controlled Substances Act created a five-category scheduling system for most legal and illegal drugs (although alcohol and tobacco were notably omitted). Depending on what category a drug is in, the drug is either subject to varying degrees of regulation and control (Schedules II through V) -- or completely prohibited, otherwise unregulated and left to criminals to manufacture and distribute (Schedule I). The scheduling of various drugs was decided largely by Congress and absent a scientific process -- with some strange results. [continues 607 words]
History will remember April 2015 as a time of rebirth for Baltimore and for our nation It has been nearly one year since I spoke at Freddie Gray's funeral - and since our city found itself in the throes of unrest. During the past year, I have had the opportunity to work with many people who are dedicated to securing a better future for our city and our nation. Yet, at this one-year mark, we are still seeking the answers to the question that I asked when facing the cameras in the pews at New Shiloh Baptist Church. Freddie Gray, who died from injuries sustained in the back of a Baltimore police van, is shown here in an undated family picture. We all know his name in death, but did we truly see him when he was alive? [continues 767 words]
Let's do something meaningful in Washington that is fully bi-partisan. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, sponsored bill S2123, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015, with 11 bipartisan co-sponsors. As of February, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had said he would put the bill on the floor for a vote if 10 more Republicans would co-sponsor. As of April, he only needs three more Republicans, but time is running short to get this done prior to the election. [continues 173 words]
Lee Carroll Brooker, a 75-year-old disabled veteran suffering from chronic pain, was arrested in July 2011 for growing three dozen marijuana plants for his own medicinal use behind his son's house in Dothan, Ala., where he lived. For this crime, Mr. Brooker was given a life sentence with no possibility of release. Alabama law mandates that anyone with certain prior felony convictions be sentenced to life without parole for possessing more than 1 kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, of marijuana, regardless of intent to sell. Mr. Brooker had been convicted of armed robberies in Florida two decades earlier, for which he served 10 years. The marijuana plants collected at his son's house - including unusable parts like vines and stalks - weighed 2.8 pounds. [continues 468 words]
The inaccuracies and misinformation in the April 6 editorial "Striking the right balance on judicial reform," which discussed criminal-justice reform bills in the Maryland legislature, are inexcusable. The editorial should have mentioned the data, report or discussions of the Justice Reinvestment Coordinating Council, which served as the basis of the legislation. The House bill, as amended, would save about $100million over the next 10 years, not the $247 million the editorial cited, because it strikes the right balance between criminal-justice reform and public safety. And the House took the time to reach consensus on the bill in an open, collaborative and transparent process. [continues 192 words]
President Obama did something remarkable this week. For the first time, a president talked about drug addiction in America without talking about prosecution, mandatory minimums or a war on drugs. For the first time, a president talked about a new approach to addiction - an approach rooted in being smart on treatment instead of just tough on crime. His plan would invest $1.1 billion to provide treatment and fight the national opioid epidemic, which he said is affecting everybody. [continues 717 words]
The great awakening to the social problems wrought by the long war on drugs and America's epoch of mass incarceration now informs almost every discussion of the state of the union and its future. It's kind of shocking. In a time of hyper-partisanship, I hear Americans from a range of ideologies acknowledge a history of institutional prejudices and misguided policies: Treating drug addiction as a crime and not a condition, ignoring the toxic side effects of zero-tolerance policing in Baltimore and other cities, curtailing efforts to rehabilitate inmates (taking corrections out of corrections), treating juvenile offenders as adults. [continues 743 words]
Move Is Part of Obama's Bid to Revisit Harsh Sentences in War on Drugs. WASHINGTON - President Obama commuted the sentences of 61 inmates Wednesday, part of his ongoing effort to give relief to prisoners who were harshly sentenced in the nation's war on drugs. More than one-third of the inmates were serving life sentences. Obama has granted clemency to 248 federal inmates, including Wednesday's commutations. White House officials said that Obama will continue granting clemency to inmates who meet certain criteria set out by the Justice Department throughout his last year. The president has vowed to change how the criminal justice system treats nonviolent drug offenders. [continues 633 words]
How to Win the War on Drugs In 1994, John Ehrlichman, the Watergate co-conspirator, unlocked for me one of the great mysteries of modern American history: How did the United States entangle itself in a policy of drug prohibition that has yielded so much misery and so few good results? Americans have been criminalizing psychoactive substances since San Francisco's anti-opium law of 1875, but it was Ehrlichman's boss, Richard Nixon, who declared the first "war on drugs" and set the country on the wildly punitive and counterproductive path it still pursues. [continues 6943 words]
WASHINGTON - Ismael Rosa, a salsa singer serving a lifetime prison sentence for drug crimes, had often promised his lawyers that he would sing for them if he ever won his freedom. On Wednesday, Mr. Rosa was brought to the warden's office at the Federal Correctional Institution in Pekin, Ill., and was told that President Obama had granted him clemency. On the phone with his lawyer, the lyrics from a gospel hymn finally slipped past his lips as tears streamed down his face. [continues 1090 words]
President Obama commuted the sentences of 61 inmates Wednesday, part of his ongoing effort to give relief to prisoners who were harshly sentenced in the nation's war on drugs. More than one-third of the inmates were serving life sentences. Obama has granted clemency to 248 federal inmates, including Wednesday's commutations. White House officials said that Obama will continue granting clemency to inmates who meet certain criteria set out by the Justice Department throughout his last year. The president has vowed to change how the criminal justice system treats nonviolent drug offenders. [continues 948 words]
A sweeping criminal justice bill that cleared the Maryland Senate last week is supposed to right some of the wrongs of the decades-long war on drugs. The legislation aims to reduce Maryland's prison population and save hundreds of millions of dollars on prison costs by easing sentencing laws for nonviolent drug offenders and pushing people who are arrested with drugs into treatment instead of behind bars. But the bill was almost derailed last week after the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee amended the measure, arguing that it went too far in keeping offenders out of jail and could pose a risk to public safety. Now the bill heads to the more liberal House of Delegates, where an emotional debate is expected this week. [continues 1108 words]
Mandatory Minimum sentencing - United States
