Saturday, December 10, 2016
Letter to President Obama
Letter to President Obama: Since January of 2008, this nationally recognized blog has been dedicated to following the very latest news regarding presidential pardons and the pardon power (or clemency powers) as exercised in each state. Reader comments are certainly welcomed but a premium will be placed on civility, relevance and originality. Please refrain from extended copying and pasting.
The Times: Ready for Blanket Clemency
P.S Ruckman at Pardon Power puts it in Perspective
The Times: Ready for Blanket Clemency: Since January of 2008, this nationally recognized blog has been dedicated to following the very latest news regarding presidential pardons and the pardon power (or clemency powers) as exercised in each state. Reader comments are certainly welcomed but a premium will be placed on civility, relevance and originality. Please refrain from extended copying and pasting.
The Times: Ready for Blanket Clemency: Since January of 2008, this nationally recognized blog has been dedicated to following the very latest news regarding presidential pardons and the pardon power (or clemency powers) as exercised in each state. Reader comments are certainly welcomed but a premium will be placed on civility, relevance and originality. Please refrain from extended copying and pasting.
Friday, December 9, 2016
Dear President Obama
The measure of mercy and compassion will not just be measured by the number of commutations granted, but also by the number and nature of those left behind.
Alexander Hamilton Federalist No.74
“The criminal code of
every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy
access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance
too sanguinary and cruel“Humanity and good
policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be
as little as possible fettered or embarrassed.”
On these accounts, one
man appears to be a more eligible dispenser of the mercy of government, than a
body of men.
 |
| These are People serving Life for Pot |
Case
for Clemency for a Category of Offenders
Life without parole for nonviolent offenders is a
sentence that is out of sync with the European Community, human rights
organizations and most countries governed by the rule of law. We lose our status as a fair and just society
when we continue to be an outlier in this particularly harsh form of
punishment. It is indeed a sentence of
walking death that coarsens our culture in multiple ways.
A category clemency for these offenders should be on
the table and when the announcement of a project to greatly expand the use of
clemency was made, many believed there was hope to correct this egregious
length of punishment for thousands serving life without parole or de facto life
sentences.
Categories
within this Category
These suggested categories are for nonviolent marijuana
offenders and those serving disparate sentences for crack cocaine. The current process needs consistency and this
suggestion would remediate the overly aggressive sentences that have been given
to these two groups as a result of the aggressive war on drugs.
Most all of these sentences were given to those who
were charged with conspiracy and exercised their sixth amendment right to
trial. In the last 15 years “the
fundaments of law, society and governance have changed extraordinarily. These LWOP sentences have become
irreconcilable without a present sense of basic fairness and justice, because
of the sea change in attitudes toward life sentences without parole.
A
Singular Category – Nonviolent Marijuana Offenders
There has also been a sea change in societal beliefs
about the benefits of marijuana and its potential for harm.”
“Looked at through the present prism of the historic
rise in prison populations the unaffordable, burgeoning costs of LWOP
sentences; the disproportionality of sentencing for drugs; the growing public
sense that the drug wars have been a public policy disaster; and, among the
majority of Americans, a sense of the relative harmlessness of marijuana, these
LWOP sentences are legally and factually unjustifiable.
Clemency is the only solution to what has become an
abiding injustice.”
When Eric Holder talked about 10,000
Commutations, the suggestion that our
sentences are harsh, lack forgiveness and mercy and do not fit the crime was
not a new concept. Careful observers of our
criminal justice system had been chattering about this fact for 20 years.
Justice Kennedy Speaks Out: ABA Association,
Aug. 3, 2003
We
hope that both the members of Congress and the Bush administration were paying
attention last weekend when Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, a
tough-on-crime Reagan appointee, decried harsh and inflexible sentencing
policies. Justice Kennedy was speaking for legal experts from across the
political spectrum when he said the current rules misspent America's criminal
justice resources by locking up people for irrationally long amounts of time.
Mark Mauer, Rayan King, & Malcolm Young, The
Meaning of Life 2004
Mark
Osler & Rachel Barkow Restructuring
Clemency: The Cost of Ignoring Clemency
A Plan for Renewal
10, 2014
After Attorney General Holders announcement, many
advocates for these unfortunate citizens serving these egregiously long
sentences began to ramp up their support for the inmates who now had hope for a
second chance for freedom. These people
who now had hope were the nonviolent drug offenders who were sentenced to assure
that they would die in Federal Prison hand cuffed to a hospital bed. Their families were energized by this promise
of clemency and reached out to social media, print media, criminal reform
advocacy groups, criminal defense attorneys and the political establishment.
The recent letter sent to President Obama signed by a
coalition of advocates asking for expedited clemency for groups suggests
categories to be considered. This is a
category that could be easily supported. John Legend letter to President Obama in Rolling Stones asks for category clemency. At the Justice Roundtable, Nkechi Taifa has written about The Fierce Urgency of Now to describe the need for category commutations.
The measure of mercy and compassion will not just be
measured by the number of commutations granted, but also by the number and
nature of those left behind.
Examples
of Nonviolent Marijuana Offenders with Life Sentences
John Knock 11150-017
PO
Box 3000
White
Deer, PA. 17887
Circuit:
11th
Age: 69
Charges:
Conspiracy to
import, distribute and
Priors: None
Incarcerated
since 1996 Sentenced Jan. 2001
Trial
or Plea: Trial
Terre
Haute FCI
PO
Box 33
Terre
Haute, IN. 47808
Circuit: 11th
Age: 57
Charges: Conspiracy to possess
with intent to distribute
Priors: trespassing – while in
college
Incarcerated
Since: March 2002
Trial
or Plea: Neither – Wanted
to take back plea after 1 day – sentenced without trial or plea
Health
Issues: Craig is a brittle
diabetic and has a back injury from working for Unicorr
Terre
Haute USP
PO
Box 33
Terre
Haute, IN. 47808
Circuit: 1st
Age: 60
Charges: Conspiracy to distribute
Priors: 2 prior marijuana
offenses
Incarcerated
Since: 2006
Trial
or Plea: Trial
Health Issues: Michael has been in a wheel chair
since the age of 11 as a result of a farm accident
Hector McGurk 25843-102
FCI
Tucson
PO.
Box 23811
Tucson
AZ. 85724
Circuit: 4th
Age: 57
Charges:
Conspiracy to
possess with intent to distribute conspiracy to money launder
Priors:
Incarcerated
Since: 7/3/2003
Trial
or Plea: Trial – 1st 12/2004
hung jury 4/13/2005 convicted
Health
Issues: diabetes
USP
Atwater
PO
Box 01900
Atwater,
CA. 95301
Circuit: 6th
Age: 66
Charges: Conspiracy
Priors: Marijuana 1976
Incarcerated
Since: 1994
USP
Allenwood
PO
Box 3000
White
Deer, PA. 17887
Circuit: 4th
Age: 53
Charges: Conspiracy -possession
Priors:
Incarcerated
since: 2007
Trial or
Plea: Trial
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)