http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/19/obama-pardon-crack-cocaine_n_4474876.html
boy Fox and cohorts will be all a buzz about this one.
President Barack Obama on Thursday commuted the sentences of eight federal inmates who were convicted of crack cocaine offenses, greatly expanding his use of the presidential clemency power to help those incarcerated because of harsh drug laws.
In a statement, Obama said they’d been sentenced under an “unfair system.” In 2011, Congress passed a law that effectively reduced the federal government’s mandatory penalties for people convicted of crack offenses, but commuting the sentences represents the first time the reform has been applied to those convicted before it was adopted.“If they had been sentenced under the current law, many of them would have already served their time and paid their debt to society,” Obama explained in the statement.Three of the inmates -- Reynolds Wintersmith Jr., Clarence Aaron and Stephanie George -- were featured in a recent report by the American Civil Liberties Union about the thousands of people serving life in prison for nonviolent offenses.The report, which received attention from a range of media outlets, including The Huffington Post, revealed that more than 3,000 inmates were serving life without parole for drug, property and other nonviolent crimes as of 2012, comprising about 6 percent of the total life-without-parole population.
Pres. doing this can put a dent in their private prison agenda, who do you think imposed those arcane laws anyway?
Reynolds Wintersmith Jr., 39, has spent half of his life in prison, according to the report. He was arrested at 19 for dealing drugs and declined a plea offer of 10 years, choosing to go to trial. He was a street dealer, but opened himself up to the life-without-parole sentence because he was held accountable for the entire amount of cocaine sold as part of a conspiracy in which he had a small role.Clarence Aaron, 43, was sentenced to three life-without-parole sentences as a college student for playing a minor role in two large, planned drug deals. He wouldn't testify against his co-conspirators, but they testified against him and received reduced sentences.
all about the Benjamins of private prisons stocking up for the next millenium, just as egrigious as the Black abused women who got 20 years for a warning shot before being attacked by her long time abuser and ex husband.
