President Obama has commuted the sentences of 46 prisoners mostly incarcerated for drug offenses. The first thing I need to know is exactly who the people are and what they are in prison for. Daniel Greenfield in Frontpage Magazine gets me off to a good start.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/259449/ex-cocaine-user-obama-just-pardoned-bunch-coke-daniel-greenfield
"These men and women were not hardened criminals, but the overwhelming majority had been sentenced to at least 20 years. Fourteen of them had been sentenced to life for nonviolent drug offenses, so their punishments didn't fit the crime,"
-President Obama
Really?
The headline prisoner featured is not one of those heralded "non-violent" offenders Obama is crowing about about.
In addition, take any of those prisoners in federal lockups for drug offenses, and I will assure you as a retired DEA agent that these are not just some unlucky mopes who got caught smoking marijuana or using any other drug and who got sentenced to "decades" in prison. These are dealers and traffickers at the higher end of the drug trafficking chain. There are federal sentencing guidelines in place based on many factors, such as prior arrest, quantity of drugs seized, the persons position of the organization etc. A judge must justify in writing why he or she gave a sentence below or above those guidelines.
My question is what is wrong giving a major trafficker 10-20 or 30 years in prison given the misery they have caused? And just because the guy wasn't arrested in some shootout or didn't commit murder doesn't merit the label, "non-violent".
I really fear what president Obama has in mind for his criminal justice reform. Releasing more prisoners onto the street doesn't make our streets safer as the President claims.
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8 comments:
I hope he commutes a few hundred more sentences. It is, of course, important that he choose carefully which ones to commute. But the top guys in drug trafficking organizations knew exactly how to manipulate sentencing law, so that they could get sharp reductions in their own sentences for "giving information" on some poor dupe who had helped them once or who they had set up to take the fall. The poor dupes were by law responsible as co-conspirators for the entire volume of drugs moved by the entire conspiracy, and couldn't get time off their sentence because they didn't know anything the prosecutors didn't already know from the top dogs. Look up Clarence Aaron. There are a few high profile cases previously pardoned, including Kemba Smith. Then there is a lady who ran a small bookkeeping business. Some Jamaican guys asked her to draw up papers for a business they wanted to open. Didn't tell her much more about it, until they get arrested, then said she organized the thing. Come on Gary, you know the top dealers are smart enough to cover their own rears like that. It comes with the territory.
What makes this travesty worse is Obama's writing letters to these correctly convected 46 felons, in essence, to apologize for the misdeeds of the American justice system. Also, and much more telling, is the fact that Obama did not write a letter too the Kathryn Steinle family for their lose of their daughter, by a murderous illegal immigrant. This is a President who has his own laws and does not follow the rule of law in our country.
Squid
This is a president who very consciously is tearing this country down brick by brick. He knows full well what he is doing.
Hyperbole Gary. The president is standing up for family values. Those prisoners have kids who really miss them. Some may indeed be owed apologies. I've known a few families who are.
Be interesting to know, and perhaps we will learn, what other offenses these mutts were charged with, or could have been charged with, which were either dismissed or not filed in the first place in order to get guilty pleas. Betcha there were some violent ones in there somewhere (looks like at least one had a gun), drug dealing usually not always being a peaceful occupation.
Also be interesting to know how many of these model citizens had prior convictions, and for what, as well as how many re-offend, how quickly they do so, and what those offenses are in addition to dope. Perhaps someone will keep up with them and the probable hundreds (thousands??) yet to come in the next year and a half??
Siarlys,
Let'em go because their kids really miss them??????? Hitler had a sister who really missed him to after he was gone.
Wow.
Gary, did anyone infer that President Obama has the power to resurrect dead people who's families really miss them?
elwood, have you looked up Clarence Aaron? There is also a Point of View video called "Guilt by Association" you should get hold of. You're blowing smoke without looking at any facts, just asking insinuating questions.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2015/07/15/from-a-first-arrest-to-a-life-sentence/
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