by Nicole Flatow Posted on July 18, 2014

A federal agency unanimously approved a proposal Friday could see some 46,000 inmates with drug convictions released from prison early. The change makes retroactive an amendment passed by the U.S. Sentencing Commission earlier this year to reduce overly draconian drug sentences — a move that the Commission’s chair, Judge Patti B. Saris, called a modest but important step toward fixing the “urgent” problem of prison overcrowding while many wait for Congress to fix the law.

Advocates cheered the 7-0 vote as a major win for humane sentencing — one that is likely to impact more prisoners than most amendments by the Sentencing Commission.

“Today, seven people unanimously decided to change the lives of tens of thousands of families whose loved ones were given overly long drug sentences,” same Families Against Mandatory Minimums President Julie Stewart.

The original amendment unanimously passed in April adjusted the guidelines that federal judges consult when sentencing defendants. When a mandatory minimum sentence doesn’t apply to a case (as it often does) and bind a judge to an exact sentence, the judge turns to a set of guidelines known as the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. These guidelines use the same overly punitive calculus that is the basis for mandatory minimum drug sentences, so both of these schemes have been held responsible for inflating the federal prison population by almost 800 percent percent since 1980.

The change by the U.S. Sentencing Commission only corrects a small part of this scheme. It amends a part of the guidelines that called for even longer sentences than comparable mandatory minimums. But even that small change will likely reduce the sentences of tens of thousands of drug prisoners. Going forward, the Commission estimated the change could affect some 70 percent of federal drug trafficking defendants.

The retroactive part of this amendment will not be automatic. To have their sentences reduced, those 46,000 inmates eligible for sentencing reductions would have to go before a judge, who would decide whether to grant them all or some of the sentencing reduction in the new guidelines. If all the judges granted the full reduction, inmates would see an average of 23 months shaved off their sentences, or 18.4 percent of their full sentence, according to Commission estimates (initial estimates also suggested more than 51,000 prisoners could be released. But the estimate was lowered at Friday’s meeting due to the delayed start date of November, 2015.).

This would also save the Bureau of Prisons the equivalent of 83,525 “bed years” (cost of housing one inmate for one year) over the course of many years. The Commission estimated that 395 of these inmates would die behind bars if they were not given this opportunity for early release.

These requests to reduce sentences would not come all at once. Some inmates — an estimated 8,000 — would be eligible to go before a judge immediately when the change goes into effect in 2015. But the remainder would become eligible to seek those sentencing reductions over a period of years, depending on when they were sentenced and the length of their original sentence. Although this would undoubtedly placed a burden on judges, those who testified before the Sentencing Commission in June on this issue called it courts’ “burden to bear” and that granting inmates retroactive relief is a “moral issue.”

In fact, many federal judges have expressed vocal outrage over schemes that bind them to sentencing low-level defendants like kingpins. That fundamental scheme hasn’t been changed by today’s fix. Since the mid-1980s, these drug sentencing laws have placed an over-emphasis on quantities of drugs rather than a defendant’s role in the crime. That means that a person involved in an offense that involved 50 grams of methamphetamine could get 40 years in prison, regardless of whether they served as mastermind of the deal or a low-level courier of money.

The Sentencing Commission and the U.S. Justice Department would both like to see this scheme changed. But for that, they have to wait for an act of Congress, since even the Sentencing Guidelines are tied to the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. “The real solution rests with Congress, and we continue to support efforts there to reduce mandatory minimum penalties, consistent with our recent report finding that mandatory minimum penalties are often too severe and sweep too broadly in the drug context, often capturing lower-level players,” Saris said in January.

Two bipartisan bills to reform these laws are still pending in both houses of Congress.

Source: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/07/18/3461712/federal-agency-approves-early-release-of-some-than-46000-drug-prisoners/

https://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/07/21/3462114/study-more-than-half-of-the-people-executed-in-the-united-states-have-a-severe-mental-illness/

Per the above article; “A majority of the 100 executed inmates examined in a new study by three legal researchers had “a severe mental illness such as schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder or psychosis.” Yet, because of an oddity in the Supreme Court’s death penalty cases, it is typically constitutional under existing precedents to execute people with these illnesses.

In a pair of cases decided in 2002 and 2005, the Court held that it is unconstitutional to execute intellectually disabled inmates and individuals who committed a capital offense when they were under the age of 18. As the Court explained in the first of these two cases, these cases are rooted in the fact that certain offenders “have diminished capacities to understand and process information, to communicate, to abstract from mistakes and learn from experience, to engage in logical reasoning, to control impulses, and to understand the reactions of others” — and thus it would be cruel and unusual punishment to subject them to the most permanent of punishments.

This rationale — that people with diminished mental capacity cannot be executed — applies with equal force to people with severe mental disorders. Indeed, the study by researchers Robert J. Smith, Sophie Cull and Zoë Robinson finds that “the overwhelming majority of executed offenders had intellectual and psychological deficits that rivaled—and sometimes outpaced—those associated with intellectual disability and juvenile status.” And yet the Court has not yet extended the same protections to people with severe mental illnesses that it has to juvenile offenders and people with intellectual disabilities.

In a grim reminder that the fact that a practice is unconstitutional does not mean it will cease, the same study also found that “one-third of the last hundred executed offenders were burdened by intellectual disability, borderline intellectual functioning, or traumatic brain injury—a similarly debilitating intellectual impairment.” Yet there is reason for death row inmates and their lawyers to hope that this number may change in the future. A loophole in the Court’s decision prohibiting executions of the intellectually disabled has allowed many states to evade this decision in the past, but the Court began to close this loophole earlier this year”.

by Ian Millhiser Posted on July 21, 2014 at 9:00 am

In 1978, I was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a 21-year-old woman. After decades in prison and almost 4 separate trials, I never stopped fighting to prove my innocence. And in 1999, DNA evidence proved what I had said all along: I didn’t commit that crime.

I was finally released from prison, but nearly 15 years later, Texas won’t exonerate me, so I’m still on the books as a murderer. This makes it nearly impossible for me to sign a lease or get a job. Why am I still paying for a crime I didn’t commit?

The only person who can officially pardon me is Governor Rick Perry of Texas, and he takes his cues from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

I started a petition on Change.org asking the Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend me for a full pardon — will you sign it?

Despite an Appellate ruling throwing out my second conviction with findings that “Police and prosecutorial misconduct has tainted this entire matter from the outset,” I feel that the Smith County District Attorney’s Office was more interested in saving face than serving justice.

On the eve of my fourth trial, prosecutors offered a plea-bargain: plead no-contest with no admission of guilt, and go free. I had been offered plea-bargains before and turned them down because of my innocence. But by this point, I was facing the possibility of another death sentence and my whole life came apart — my only brother had been murdered, my Dad had died of cancer, and my mother abandoned me. I took the offer and walked out of the courtroom.

Two months later, DNA evidence proved my innocence.

But because of that no-contest plea, I need Governor Perry to pardon me in order to be considered an innocent man. My time in prison still haunts me — I have severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder stemming from being raped there. I just want to be free of this terrible nightmare, but as long as I am on the books as a murderer, part of me feels like I will always be in jail.

The Texas legal system ignored and abused me for decades. But they won’t be able to ignore me any longer if thousands of you stand beside me.

I spent 22 years on death row for a murder I didn’t commit. Now, even though I’ve been proven innocent and freed, the state of Texas still treats me like a convicted killer.

Click here to sign my petition asking the Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend me for a full pardon.

Thanks for your help.

Kerry Cook
Dallas, Texas

‘Too rich to jail’ case sparks outrage

A rich father – a Du Pont family heir – served no jail time after raping his three year old daughter. How could a convicted child rapist end up with only probation and treatment? A legal panel discusses the case.

Grant Clemency to Vietnam Veteran, Darrell Hayden, life in prison for non-violent marijuana only offenses

Darrell has been in prison for 16 years and has no possibility of parole for non-violent, marijuana-only offenses, my uncle has been sentenced to die in prison because of a “three strikes” mandatory sentencing policy in the state.

Darrell is a Vietnam Vet who willingly sacrificed his life to protect and honor this country. A model prisoner with zero violet histroy. While serving his time, Darrell has watched violent criminals, rapists, and murderers serve their time and be released. Meanwhile all he wants to do is be a productive member of society, work, pay taxes, and love his family.

Being away from his home has caused Darrell precious time with his children, seeing his grandchildren grow, and missing out on so many milestones.

President Obama is the only one who has the power to bring this Father, Son, Grandfather, Uncle, Nephew and brother home. Grant Darrell clemency. Please help us reach a reasonable and just end to his prison sentence by signing and sharing this petition.

Sign petition

Severe sentences issued to senior citizen peace activists, including a nun, who broke into a nuclear facility.