The Prisoners Left Behind

 

The Prisoners Left Behind

How Barack Obama’s clemency operation failed thousands of drug offenders, some serving long sentences for cannabis crimes, and left them at the mercy of Donald Trump’s whims.

Published on Sep 7, 2018 6:50AM EDT

Raishad Hardnett @raishadmomar

Raishad Hardnett is a Philadelphia-based journalist, video producer and short documentary filmmaker. 

The last full day of Barack Obama’s presidency sent years of hopes crashing down for John Richard Knock. On January 19, 2017, Knock sat in his federal prison cell in the middle of Pennsylvania, waiting for a letter. He listened to a small radio that played an NPR station’s reporting on the state’s recently adopted medical marijuana program. For Knock, the report felt like bitter irony: For years, he had watched as cannabis investors began to reel in money for the same activities that had put him behind bars twenty-one years earlier.