Move Is Part of Obama's Bid to Revisit Harsh Sentences in War on Drugs. WASHINGTON - President Obama commuted the sentences of 61 inmates Wednesday, part of his ongoing effort to give relief to prisoners who were harshly sentenced in the nation's war on drugs. More than one-third of the inmates were serving life sentences. Obama has granted clemency to 248 federal inmates, including Wednesday's commutations. White House officials said that Obama will continue granting clemency to inmates who meet certain criteria set out by the Justice Department throughout his last year. The president has vowed to change how the criminal justice system treats nonviolent drug offenders. [continues 633 words]
President Obama commuted the sentences of 61 inmates Wednesday, part of his ongoing effort to give relief to prisoners who were harshly sentenced in the nation's war on drugs. More than one-third of the inmates were serving life sentences. Obama has granted clemency to 248 federal inmates, including Wednesday's commutations. White House officials said that Obama will continue granting clemency to inmates who meet certain criteria set out by the Justice Department throughout his last year. The president has vowed to change how the criminal justice system treats nonviolent drug offenders. [continues 948 words]
President Obama is expected to grant clemency to another group of drug offenders in the coming weeks, part of his ongoing effort to provide relief to inmates in federal prisons who were sentenced to harsh terms during the nation's war on drugs. The White House will also be holding an event on March 31, called Life after Clemency, that will include former inmates and their attorneys, along with some prison reform advocates. The White House gathering, which is not open to the media, traces one of the president's centerpiece criminal-justice initiatives and will include a discussion on "ways to improve paths to reentry," according to the invitation. [continues 291 words]
Despite Recent Setbacks, Utah Republican Says Legislation Has Traction The co-sponsor of bipartisan legislation to reduce some mandatory minimum drug and gun sentences said Wednesday that he is hopeful Congress can still pass the bill despite recent setbacks. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said issues have arisen that have slowed the legislation - considered by advocates of sentencing reform to be the most significant in decades. But "I don't believe it's stalled," he said at "Out of Jail, Into Society," a Washington Post Live event about prison reform. [continues 533 words]
Now a Professor, He Writes to Obama About Mandatory 55-Year Term A former federal judge in Utah asked President Obama on Tuesday to "swiftly" give clemency to Weldon Angelos, a man he sentenced to 55 years in prison in connection with selling marijuana. Calling the sentence "one of the most troubling that I ever faced in my five years on the federal bench," Paul G. Cassell, now a professor at the University of Utah's law school, said the mandatory minimum sentence he was required to impose on Angelos was one of the chief reasons he chose to step down as a judge. [continues 761 words]
At 9:10 a.m. Friday, the intercom blared at the federal prison here as Weldon Angelos walked the track on this sprawling campus of drab gray buildings in California's Central Valley. The booming voice of a prison official called an inmate to the main office. About 25 minutes later, the official came on the intercom again, summoning another prisoner. Angelos knew exactly what was happening. The prisoners had heard a rumor the night before that President Obama might grant early release to certain drug offenders before he left Washington for the holidays. Angelos was excited, anxious. This was it. The lucky inmates on Obama's list were being called inside to take phone calls from their attorneys, who would tell them the good news. [continues 1532 words]
Third Time This Year Obama Has Commuted Terms Under Initiative President Obama commuted the sentences of 95 drug offenders Friday, more than double the number he granted this summer, in an effort to give relief to drug offenders who were harshly sentenced in the nation's war on drugs. It is the third time this year that Obama has used his unique clemency power to release federal drug offenders, whose harsh sentences have contributed to the phenomenon of mass incarceration. The commutations are a centerpiece of the president's effort to make the most significant changes in the nation's criminal justice system in decades. He and former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. have spoken passionately about the need to fix what they say is a broken system - one they argue has subjected too many nonviolent inmates to decades behind bars, disproportionately hurting minority communities. [continues 1185 words]
A Nonviolent Drug Offender Granted Clemency After 2 Decades Behind Bars Adjusts to Life on the Outside DALLAS - The recently released federal prisoner sat down at his sister's dining room table. He pulled out a legal pad and began the letter he had been turning over in his mind for several months: "Dear Mr. President, I am writing you today with the utmost gratitude to personally thank you for granting my petition for clemency on March 31, 2015. Your actions have given me a second chance to start living life normally again and mere words can't express how truly grateful I am for your making this moment possible. The Bible says, 'To whom much is given, much is required,' and I vow to make the most of this unique opportunity that I've been given." [continues 2021 words]
The Inmate Release Is Part of a Big Change in Federal Drug Policy. washington) The Justice Department is set to release about 6,000 inmates early from prison - the largest ever release of federal prisoners-to reduce crowding and provide relief to drug offenders who received harsh sentences in the past three decades. The inmates from federal prisons nationwide will be set free by the department's Bureau of Prisons between Oct. 30 andNov. 2. Most of them will go to halfway houses and home confinement before being put on supervised release. [continues 930 words]
Biggest One-Time Release of U.S. Inmates The Justice Department is set to release about 6,000 inmates early from prison - the largest one-time release of federal prisoners - in an effort to reduce overcrowding and provide relief to drug offenders who received harsh sentences over the past three decades, according to U.S. officials. The inmates from federal prisons nationwide will be set free by the department's Bureau of Prisons between Oct. 30 and Nov. 2. About two-thirds of them will go to halfway houses and home confinement before being put on supervised release. About one-third are foreign citizens who will be quickly deported, officials said. [continues 1037 words]
A Bipartisan Push for Sentencing Reform Unites President Obama and the Koch Brothers, but Many Are Still Waiting Behind Bars The gleaming black granite tower where conservative billionaire Charles Koch oversees an empire of multinational corporations is 1,500 miles and worlds away from the California prison cell of Weldon Angelos. But Angelos sits at the intersection of an unusual alliance between the industrialist and President Obama - longtime political nemeses. Their cooperation illustrates the depth of a bipartisan effort to reduce the nation's [continues 2998 words]
Fort Worth, Texas - The Case of Sharanda Jones Is Not Unusual in a Country Where You Can't Be Too Tough on Drug Crime. Barack Obama Has Other Ideas, Though. Prisoner 33177-077 struggles to describe the moment in 1999 when a federal judge sentenced her to life in prison after her conviction on a single cocaine offence. She was a first-time, non-violent offender. "I was numb," says Sharanda Jones at the Carswell women's prison in Fort Worth, Texas. "I was thinking about my baby. I thought it can't be real life in prison." [continues 1424 words]
Drug Offenders' Terms Reduced As Part of Effort to Amend Justice System President Obama on Monday commuted the sentences of 46 drug offenders, more than double the number of commutations he granted earlier this year, as part of his effort to reform the criminal justice system. In a Facebook video posted Monday, the president said the 46 prisoners 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 urged that they make different choices now that their sentences had been commuted. [continues 918 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]
North Dakota's Oil Rush Brings Cash and Promise to Reservation, Along With Drug-Fueled Crime ON THE FORT BERTHOLD INDIAN RESERVATION - Tribal police Sgt. Dawn White is racing down a dusty two-lane road - siren blaring, police radio crackling - as she attempts to get to the latest 911 call on a reservation that is a blur of oil rigs and bright-orange gas flares. "Move! C'mon, get out of the fricking way!" White yells as she hits 102 mph and weaves in and out of a line of slow-moving tractor-trailers that stretches for miles. [continues 2856 words]
The Drug Enforcement Administration is concerned about a surge in the illegal shipment of marijuana from Colorado since the state legalized the drug, and is trying to crack down on minors' use of the substance, the head of the agency said Wednesday. Administrator Michele Leonhart said the DEA is troubled by the increase in marijuana trafficking in states surrounding Colorado and worries that the same phenomenon could be repeated around Washington state, where recreational marijuana is expected to be sold legally soon. In Kansas, she said, there has been a 61 percent increase in seizures of marijuana from Colorado. [continues 623 words]
An Obama administration initiative to encourage nonviolent drug offenders in federal prison to seek clemency is likely to trigger tens of thousands of petitions, and the government could be processing applications for the next three years, according to lawyers and civil rights activists. MICHEL DU CILLE/THE WASHINGTON POST Julie Stewart founded Families Against Mandatory Minimums after her brother was sent to prison for five years for growing marijuana. Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole on Wednesday laid out the six criteria that Justice Department lawyers will consider when they review clemency requests from some of the country's 219,000 federal inmates. The initiative is part of an effort to reduce the prison population and end disparities in drug sentencing that, for instance, led those trafficking in crack cocaine to receive much longer sentences than people dealing the same substance in powder form. [continues 740 words]
Justice Dept. Expects Thousands of Cases Administration Effort Aimed at Nonviolent Prisoners The Obama administration is beginning an aggressive new effort to foster equity in criminal sentencing by considering clemency requests from as many as thousands of federal inmates serving time for drug offenses, officials said Monday. The initiative, which amounts to an unprecedented campaign to free nonviolent offenders, will begin immediately and continue over the next two years, officials said. The Justice Department said it expects to reassign dozens of lawyers to its understaffed pardons office to handle the requests from inmates. [continues 693 words]
