President Barack Obama on Thursday commuted the sentences of eight people he said were serving unduly harsh sentences for drug crimes in the most expansive use yet of his presidential power to free inmates.
Obama made the commutations because the prisoners were sentenced under a system that treated convictions for crack cocaine offenses harsher than powder cocaine. Obama also pardoned 13 others for various crimes.
The president signed the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010 to reduce penalties for crack cocaine offenses in order to reduce the disparity with powder cocaine penalties. But the act addressed only new cases, not old ones.
Obama said those whose sentences he commuted have served at least 15 years in prison, many under mandatory minimums that required judges to impose the long sentences even if they didn't think it fit the crime.
"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 said in a written statement. "Instead, because of a disparity in the law that is now recognized as unjust, they remain in prison, separated from their families and their communities, at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars each year."Read the rest of the story HERE
One of the eight federal prisoners granted sentence commutations by President Barack Obama Thursday is a first cousin of Gov. Deval Patrick (D-Mass), one of the president's most devoted supporters on the national political scene.
Reynolds Allen Wintersmith Jr. was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted in Illinois federal court in 1994 of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and distribute cocaine and cocaine base and possession with intent to distribute crack. He was 19 at the time of his arrest and 17 at the time he got involved running drugs for the Gangster Disciples gang. He is 39 today and has spent the past 19 years in prison.Read the rest of this story HERE.
If you like what you see, please "Like" us on Facebook either here or here.
Please follow us on Twitter here.
Please follow us on Twitter here.
1 comment:
This has always been a SORE SPOT for me.
The court system and juries pass judgment on CRIMINALS and sentences are imposed...and Some politician later on changes all that because he/she doesn't like it. The hell with the Judicial process.
If some criminal doesn't like his/her sentence, there is the appeal process. Politicians need to stay the hell out of it...Democrat or Republican (i.e; Mike Huckabee).
Post a Comment