One interesting reaction to Holder’s comments today came from a certain former Attorney General… Former AG Mukasey: Holder Has Wrong Approach on Mandatory Sentences
“Mandatory minimums impose a certain rigidity in sentencing that’s not appropriate in the individual case,” Mukasey said Monday on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper.” […]
Mukasey said he would be happy to work with Holder to find proper ways to change mandatory sentencing laws.
Oh, really?
Anybody else remember Michael Mukasey? Think back, …way back, to early 2008.
We had just done a bit of sentencing reform, and were releasing some prisoners who had been given ridiculously long sentences under the 100:1 crack/cocaine disparity (now down to only a merely ridiculous 18:1).
Speaking before the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said that “a sudden influx of criminals from federal prison into your communities could lead to a surge in new victims as a tragic, but predictable, result.â€
Somebody needs to ask him how that prediction turned out.
The cockroaches that helped build the prison feeding system we have are coming out of the woodwork to protect their jobs they took after they built it.
Kind of like the former DEA and ONCP Admins.
Speaking of sentencing reform I read a tweet earlier that these mandatory minimums with all these stipulations on them in order to be eligible that one is you have to plead out? is that true? if so are they serious?
Speaking of people needing to change their tune, Karl Rove is predicting the Evil One, Vice President Joe Biden, will run for president in 2016. If Mr. CSA thinks he’s going to make it past the blog gauntlet after being the architect of a crime against humanity, he’s too delusional to be president of anything.
Not likely…Joe’s seventy already, that would make him 73 in 2016.
I don’t think megalomaniacs think that way. I don’t think he could win the nomination, but I would think he would at least try.
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I can’t imagine Joe Biden getting elected POTUS. But that’s just me being unable to not associate his name with the horrid imagery of skidmarked jockey shorts scattered on the floor of his home. Do we really want to see his crusty underwear hanging off the backs of White House chairs and scattered on the bathroom floor when he entertains foreign dictators at a formal White House dinner? I think not.
and to think these two (rove and biden) represent the “great divide” of american party politics…what a sham american democracy has become, two populist manipulators screwing the public over…i hope Biden does run because it will force the media to examine his drug warrior record
Arlington (Texas) police defend raid on garden commune that yielded no marijuana, just code violations.
That’s weird…it says the police “mowed the grass.”
Why on earth would they do that?
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Extra overtime pay?
The cop that mowed the lawn lost a bet?
They were dismantling a meth lab immediately prior to the lawn mowing and accidentally ingested some?
Just plain OCD?
They thought the grass was cannabis? This is Texas, home of the horse mint eradimacation team you know.
They felt guilty about doing the raid and wanted to make up for doing that?
Hey….who’s going to Hempfest?? I will be at my usual post, in the NORML/High Times tent most of the day Saturday. If you make it out to the ‘fest, please come on by and say Hi to old darkcycle.
Hey Pete, you should come out next year and speak….It would be too much fun! Get ahold of Vivian through my FB page. I know him and he’d be stoked to have you!
Wish I was up there to come out and puff one with ya, dc!
Not that far Matthew, I’ve made the drive from your locale several times..it’s doable in a day….
not this year… but I will point out that on Sept 5 Wis governor Scott Walker will be in Seattle, speaking of politicians that havta go…
Not I, but my kids are all going to be there, today, with my grandkids. I told them where you’d be, so they may show up there.
The war on drugs is breaking the Justice Department’s budget
http://tinyurl.com/moaqor3
The big crime-policy news today: The Justice Department will no longer pursue steep mandatory-minimum prison sentences for many low-level, nonviolent drug offenders who aren’t affiliated with gangs or larger organizations.
Why the shift? In his press conference, Attorney General Eric Holder argued that many of America’s incarceration policies are inhumane and counterproductive. “We must face the reality that, as it stands, our system is, in too many ways, broken,†Holder said. “Many aspects of our criminal justice system may actually exacerbate these problems rather than alleviate them.â€
But here’s another way to think about today’s move: The rapid growth in federal prisons was putting a serious strain on the Justice Department’s budget. The number of federal inmates has grown tenfold since 1980 and now surpasses 218,000. Housing all those prisoners isn’t cheap: The average minimum-security inmate now costs $21,000 a year, while the average high-security inmate costs $33,000 a year.
Add it all up, and the Obama administration had to request $6.9 billion for the Bureau of Prisons in fiscal 2013. That may not sound like much in the context of trillion-dollar deficits. But a recent report (pdf) from the Urban Institute pointed out that if the current rate of incarceration continues, federal prisons will keep taking up a bigger and bigger chunk of the Department of Justice’s budget — rising to 30 percent by 2020:
There is a graph at the article. And the DOJ isn’t the only budget overdrawn because of the wosd,,what about the ONDCP family of bureaucracies and the required expenditures incurred keeping the world locked into prohibition,,even trade sanctions cost money.
Religious defense OK for part of pot ministry case
http://tinyurl.com/lgogzre
HILO, Hawaii —A federal court judge says a 64-year-old Hilo cannabis minister can use religion as a defense in part of his federal marijuana distribution case.
Roger Christie has been jailed for nearly three years while he awaits trial on charges of conspiring to manufacture and distribute pot.
It would be good to know if Mr Christie has caused it to take 3 years for the trial to take place or if the government is the one taking so long. And is there no bond or is it that Christie can’t afford the bond,,,seems awfully suspicious to me,
“When even one American – who has done nothing wrong – is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril.”
— Harry S. Truman
Gulf War vet sues city of San Diego
over pot allegations, child abduction
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
In a clear cut case of ideology overruling common sense, this lawsuit is another glaring example of the absolute failure of America’s war on drugs. And as usual, innocent civilians and kids become collateral damage.
Ganjawar and Child Protection Racketeering
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil
is for good people to do nothing.” — Edmund Burke
Marijuana Stops Child’s Severe Seizures
“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”
– Frederick Douglass
A Displaced and Discarded Labor Force
A politician normally prospers under democracy in proportion …
as he excels in the invention of imaginary perils
and imaginary defenses against them.
— H. L. Mencken, 1918