Move Is Part of Drive to Reform Criminal Justice WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama commuted the sentences of 46 nonviolent drug offenders Monday, doubling the total number of clemencies he has granted as the administration seeks to correct what many see as the wrongs inflicted by mandatory-minimum prison sentences. They included Norman O'Neal Brown, a Prince George's County man who was sentenced to life in prison in 1993 on charges of possessing and distributing crack cocaine. The latest clemencies brought Obama's total commutations to the largest figure of any president since Lyndon B. Johnson. [continues 885 words]
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Monday commuted the sentences of 46 drug offenders in federal prisons, more than double the number of commutations he granted earlier this year as part of his administration's effort to reform the criminal justice system. In a Facebook video posted Monday afternoon, the president said the people who received the commutations had served sentences disproportionate to their crimes. "These men and women were not hardened criminals, but the overwhelming majority had been sentenced to at least 20 years," he said. "I believe that at its heart, America is a nation of second chances. And I believe these folks deserve their second chance." He noted that in his letters to them, he made sure they knew they needed to make different choices now that their sentences had been commuted. [continues 58 words]
President Pushes for Changes to Make Justice System Fairer Washington (AP) - Calling America "a nation of second chances," President Barack Obama cut the prison sentences of 46 nonviolent drug offenders Monday in what the White House hopes will be just one prong of a broader push to make the criminal justice system fairer while saving the government money. Fourteen of those whose sentences were commuted had been sent to prison for life and the vast majority for at least 20 years, the president said in a video released by the White House, adding that "their punishments didn't fit the crime." [continues 496 words]
WASHINGTON - President Obama commuted the sentences of 46 nonviolent drug offenders Monday, doubling the number of clemencies he has granted as the administration seeks to correct what many see as the wrongs inflicted by mandatory minimum prison sentences. The latest clemencies brought Obama's total commutations to 89, the largest number since President Johnson's 226. Decades after the tough-on-crime era of the 1980s and 1990s, the Obama administration is hoping to combine the president's commutation powers with Justice Department reforms and support from sympathetic Republicans in Congress to change sentencing policies that have had a disproportionate effect on African Americans and Latinos. [continues 880 words]
WASHINGTON - President Obama announced Monday that he was commuting the sentences of 46 federal drug offenders, more than doubling the number of nonviolent criminals to whom he has granted clemency since taking office. "These men and women were not hardened criminals, but the overwhelming majority had been sentenced to at least 20 years; 14 of them had been sentenced to life for nonviolent drug offenses, so their punishments didn't fit the crime," Obama said in a video released on the White House Facebook page, in which he is shown signing the commutation letters. "I believe that at its heart, America is a nation of second chances, and I believe these folks deserve their second chance." [continues 284 words]
Charlie Horace Scandrett Jr. was a free man Tuesday after serving 18 years of a 30-year sentence on a drug conviction, a punishment a Clayton County judge said was "just not right." "I'm going to do today what probably should have been done a long time ago," said Superior Court Judge Matthew O. Simmons as the Scandrett's father and sister wept during a hearing."Today he can go home to his family." Scandrett could have been out within five years but the state-court judge who was filling in for Simmons the day he was convicted in 1997 gave him the maximum sentence possible under the recidivist laws at the time, said Patrick Mulvaney, a lawyer for the Southern Center for Human Rights. [continues 427 words]
Organized Labor Helped Cannabis Evolve From a Movement to a Multi-Billion Dollar Industry. Now, Organized Labor Is Working to Ensure It Keeps a Piece of the Action. Cannabis was good to Debby Goldsberry. The time she spent in the late 1980s and early '90s following the Grateful Dead on tour, passing out photocopied fliers that agitated for marijuana legalization, led to a high-paying career. After California legalized medical cannabis in 1996, Goldsberry cofounded one of the state's first major marijuana businesses, Berkeley Patients Group. [continues 5417 words]
WASHINGTON - Sometime in the next few weeks, aides expect President Obama to issue orders freeing dozens of federal prisoners locked up on nonviolent drug offenses. With the stroke of his pen, he will probably commute more sentences at one time than any president has in nearly half a century. The expansive use of his clemency power is part of a broader effort by Mr. Obama to correct what he sees as the excesses of the past, when politicians eager to be tough on crime threw away the key even for minor criminals. With many Republicans and Democrats now agreeing that the nation went too far, Mr. Obama holds the power to unlock that prison door, especially for young African-American and Hispanic men disproportionately affected. [continues 1614 words]
In One American Meth Corridor, a Federal Judge Comes Face to Face With the Reality of Congressionally Mandated Sentencing They filtered into the courtroom and waited for the arrival of the judge, anxious to hear what he would decide. The defendant's family knelt in the gallery to pray for a lenient sentence. A lawyer paced the entryway and rehearsed his final argument. The defendant reached into the pocket of his orange jumpsuit and pulled out a crumpled note he had written to the judge the night before: "Please, you have all the power," it read. "Just try and be merciful." [continues 3220 words]
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has commuted Jeff Mizanskey's life sentence for marijuana offenses, allowing him a parole hearing - an indication of the public and political shift on draconian drug laws. ATLANTA - Back in the day, Jeff Mizanskey was a bit of a pothead, at least that's how the police in Sedalia, Mo., knew him. The third time Mr. Mizanskey got busted for weed - during a 1993 sting at a Super 8 motel - he lost his case at trial and received a mind-boggling punishment: Life in prison, with no chance of getting out. [continues 1096 words]
Not long ago, a man who had covertly dealt pot in the nation's capital for three decades approached a young political operative at a birthday party in a downtown Washington steakhouse. He was about to test a fresh marketing strategy to take advantage of the District's peculiar new marijuana law, which allows people to possess and privately consume the drug but provides them no way to legally buy it for recreational use. Those contradictions have created a surge in demand and new opportunities for illicit pot purveyors. [continues 1614 words]
Aging Population of Inmates Serving Long Sentences Takes a Toll on Budgets COLEMAN PRISON, Fla. - Twenty-one years into his nearly 50-year sentence, 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." [continues 958 words]
Aging Population of Inmates Serving Long Sentences Takes a Toll on Budgets COLEMAN PRISON, Fla. - Twenty-one years into his nearly 50-year sentence, 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." [continues 955 words]
Human, Financial Toll High As Tens of Thousands Linger INSIDE COLEMAN PRISON, Fla. - Twenty-one years into his nearly 50-year sentence, 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." [continues 2635 words]
With State Prisons Over Capacity, Some Are Calling for Reversal of Harsh Law Kevin Ott drew his first strike when he was arrested for a small bag of methamphetamine in his pocket in 1993. A year later, authorities caught the self-described country boy from Okemah with marijuana plants growing at his home. That strike got him 15 months in prison. Still in his early 30's, Ott took strike three in 1996 when police found 3 1/2 ounces of meth in his home, enough for prosecutors to charge him with trafficking. His punishment: life without parole. [continues 3439 words]
Nonviolent Drug Offenders Affected WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama on Tuesday shortened the prison sentences of nearly two dozen drug convicts, including eight serving life in prison, in an act the White House said continues Obama's push to make the justice system fairer by reducing harsh sentences that were handed down under outdated guidelines. The effort could lead Obama to grant clemency more often as his second and final term in office winds down. In December, Obama issued his first round of commutations under new guidelines that were put in place to cut costs by reducing the growing prison population and grant leniency to nonviolent drug offenders sentenced to years-long terms of confinement away from society. A commutation leaves the conviction in place and ends the punishment. [continues 324 words]
Three men arrested in recent weeks could get life in prison after being caught with small amounts of edible marijuana products, a fact that has sparked an outcry from some Amarillo residents. Potter County sheriff's deputies arrested Eli McCarthy Manna, 30, and Andrew Bruce George, 27, after stopping them for an unspecified traffic violation March 16. The men were found to be in possession of seven purple brownies weighing a total of 650 grams which, being more than 400 grams, triggered the most severe punishment range for drug possession under Texas law - 10 years to life in prison and a fine of up to $50,000. [continues 974 words]
Prison Terms Were Set Under Guidelines Now Deemed Too Harsh President Obama on Tuesday commuted the sentences of 22 drug offenders, the largest batch of prisoners to be granted early release under his administration as it steps up an overhaul of the nation's criminal justice system. The early release of federal inmates is part of a sweeping effort to reduce the enormous costs of overcrowded prisons and address drug sentences handed down under old guidelines U.S. officials now view as too harsh. Obama had previously commuted the sentences of eight prisoners under the new Justice Department-led initiative; tens of thousands more are seeking to have their cases reviewed. [continues 638 words]
John S. Santa has been successful in the fuel oil and energy business, but his real passion is trying to reduce the population of nonviolent offenders in the state's correctional system and to help those who are released into a society that turns its back on ex-offenders. Santa and the Rev. Marilyn B. Kendrix, associate pastor of Church of the Redeemer, United Church of Christ, met with the New Haven Register's editorial board Tuesday as members of the Malta Justice Initiative, which is, among other things, supporting Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's "Second Chance Society" proposals to reduce the human and financial costs of the state's criminal justice system. [continues 808 words]
The first recreational marijuana store east-bound drivers encounter after crossing the Utah-Colorado border on Interstate 70 had a steady trickle of in-state and out-of-state traffic during its opening weekend. Shoppers holding driver's licenses from Colorado, Utah, Arizona, North Dakota, and Minnesota, to name a few states, came to Kush Gardens in De Beque after the shop opened its doors for the first time Saturday morning, according to employees. By Sunday afternoon, an estimated 300 to 400 adults had visited the store, according to Stephanie Swank, a bud tender at Kush Gardens. [continues 492 words]
