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]
Just a few weeks ago, Joel A. Giambra the lobbyist was working the State Capitol's hallways advocating the legalization of marijuana. Now he works a different Capitol angle as a Republican hopeful for governor, proposing that legalized and tightly regulated marijuana sales represent the best way to address the state's massive infrastructure and mass transit needs. "I'm saying raising taxes is not the solution," he said during a Monday press conference on Niagara Street. "My job would be to convince the Legislature that this is the most appropriate way to deal with this particular problem of infrastructure." [continues 405 words]
Each new year brings new driving or transportation-related laws in California and 2018 is no exception. We'd like to share these new laws with readers in the next few columns. Marijuana and edible cannabis use in vehicles, Senate Bill 65: Recreational marijuana/cannabis is now legal to be purchased and consumed in certain places, but that doesn't mean you can light up a joint on your daily commute. Consuming cannabis while driving or while riding as a passenger in a vehicle in California is illegal. This new law is similar to the "open container" laws that outlaw drinking alcohol while driving, though having some alcohol in your system while driving isn't outlawed. [continues 92 words]
Patient response to Pa. marijuana program 'extremely positive' What if Pennsylvania had a medical marijuana program but few people knew about it? With hundreds of millions of dollars invested in cannabis growing facilities and dispensaries -- and the health of thousands of prospective patients on the line -- alerting state residents to the program should be a priority. But there's effectively a gag order on nearly all players involved. The state Department of Health, responsible for the program's roll-out, has no budget to pay for advertising. Marijuana growers, processors and dispensaries are prohibited by law from actively promoting their wares. And doctors who write recommendations for medical cannabis are forbidden from publicizing that they're participating. [continues 565 words]
Gov. Chris Christie is growing impatient with the Trump administration over its delay in declaring the opioid epidemic a national emergency. Christie said during an interview with MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes on Tuesday night that too many lives are being lost to drug overdoses for a formal declaration to wait any longer. "I think it's time for the president and White House staff to get on this and for the president to demand that they get the papers in front of him so he can sign it," Christie said. [continues 454 words]
JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) - A Pennsylvania man charged with trying to drive through the Holland Tunnel with a cache of weapons on his way to rescue a teenager from a drug den will ask New Jersey's governor for a pardon after a judge denied his request to enter a pretrial intervention program. Attorney James Lisa told a judge Thursday that he will seek a pardon after the judge denied allowing John Cramsey, of East Greenville, to enter the program after he earlier rejected a plea. [continues 311 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]
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Thursday commuted the 20-year prison sentenced imposed on Richard Ruiz Montes, convicted in 2008 for his role in the Modesto's pot-dealing California Healthcare Collective. In one of his final presidential acts, Obama used his executive authority to cut Montes' sentence by more than half. Now held at a federal facility in Atwater, according to the Bureau of Prisons' inmate locator, the 36-year-old Montes will be released May 19. He is identified as Richard by the White House and Bureau of Prisons, but has also been known as Ricardo. The White House listed his hometown as Escalon. [continues 184 words]
President Barack Obama on Thursday commuted the 20-year prison sentenced imposed on Richard Ruiz Montes, convicted in 2008 for his role in the Modesto's pot-dealing California Healthcare Collective. In one of his final presidential acts, Obama used his executive authority to cut Montes' sentence by more than half. Now held at a federal facility in Atwater, according to the Bureau of Prisons' inmate locator, the 36-year-old Montes will be released May 19. He is identified as Richard by the White House and Bureau of Prisons, but has also been known as Ricardo. The White House listed his hometown as Escalon. [continues 184 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]
[photo] Geraldine Ferraro waves to the crowd at the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco.(Photo: Dixie Vereen, USA TODAY) MONTPELIER, Vt. -- The son of former vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro has been pardoned by the governor of Vermont nearly 30 years after he was convicted of selling cocaine to an undercover officer. John Zaccaro Jr. was a Middlebury College student when he was arrested in 1986 and accused of selling $25 worth of cocaine to an undercover state police officer. He was convicted in 1988 and served four months under house arrest. At the time, Ferraro accused prosecutors of unfairly targeting her son because of her high profile after becoming the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1984. Outgoing Gov. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, pardoned Zaccaro and nine others Saturday. Zaccaro didn't immediately respond to messages left for comment. Ferraro died in 2011. [end]
With fewer than 4,000 approved patients, the nascent medical marijuana business in Illinois is off to a slow start. Yet it hasn't kept away a cadre of cannabis entrepreneurs who once relied on guns, badges, tough drug laws and lengthy prison sentences to fight the drug. While neither state regulators nor the medical marijuana industry track the number of employees who were former law enforcement officials, The Associated Press has identified no fewer than 17 in Illinois, many of whom have outsized influence -- from a trustee of the state's chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police to one-time undercover narcotics officers. [continues 749 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]
WASHINGTON - President Obama granted 98 more commutations to federal inmates Thursday, bringing the total for this year to 688 - the most commutations ever granted by a president in a single year. In all, he's now shortened the sentences of 872 inmates during his presidency, more than any president since Woodrow Wilson. The actions were part of Obama's extraordinary effort to use his constitutional power to rectify what he sees as unduly harsh sentences imposed during the "War on Drugs." Through a clemency initiative announced in 2014, he's effectively re-sentenced hundreds of non-violent drug dealers to the sentences they would have received under today's more lenient sentencing guidelines. [end]
WASHINGTON - For 126 federal inmates who received presidential clemency last month, the good news might have come with a dose of disappointment. President Obama had granted their requests for commutations, using his constitutional pardon power to shorten their sentences for drug offenses. But instead of releasing them, he left them with years - and in some cases, more than a decade - left to serve on their sentences. As Obama has begun to grant commutations to inmates convicted of more serious crimes, Obama has increasingly commuted their sentences without immediately releasing them. These are what are known as "term" commutations, as opposed to the more common "time served" commutations, and they represent a remarkable departure from recent past practice. Unlike a full pardon, commutations shorten sentences but leave other consequences of the conviction in place. [end]
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]
D.C. Tenants Face Eviction As 'Drug Nuisances' Even When No One Is Charged With a Crime For eight years, Rajuawn Middleton, an assistant at a major downtown law firm, lived in a four-bedroom red-brick home she rented on a quiet tree-lined street in Northeast Washington - until she was forced out over a few cigarettes containing a "green leafy substance." In March 2014, police arrested her adult son on charges of possessing a handgun outside a nightclub. He had not lived with Middleton for years, but two weeks later, D.C. police looking for more guns raided her home. [continues 3063 words]
