Free Republic

The Justice Department should limit the types of cases it brings and more nonviolent criminals should be steered toward probation and away from prison, according to task force recommendations designed to cut the federal inmate count and save more than $5 billion. [...] The recommendations from the Charles Colson Task Force on Federal Corrections provide concrete steps prosecutors, judges, prison officials and policymakers can take to reduce prison overcrowding and ease spending on a corrections system that's swelled in the last three decades as a result of harsh mandatory minimum sentences imposed on drug criminals. ...

Congress can pass legislation giving judges more discretion in the sentencing of prisoners, but President Obama “also has the ability to take executive action” to commute the sentences of “low-level” drug offenders—and that’s just what he plans to do, Deputy Attorney General James Cole told the New York State Bar Association annual meeting on Thursday. “A little over a month ago, the President commuted the sentences of eight men and women who were sentenced under severe—and out of date—mandatory minimum sentencing laws,” Cole said. …

“They treat him like a dangerous criminal.” Judith Minor has had to live with that reality for the last 13 years—ever since her son Ricky disappeared behind the bars of Yazoo City Jail in Mississippi because he had drugs worth a handful of dollars on him. He was sentenced to life without parole—something his 76-year-old mother just cannot fathom. But his case is no exception in the US justice system. It could be a pair of socks, a slice of pizza—many petty thieves serve life sentences in the US. Ricky Minor’s offense was carrying one gram of methamphetamine. … “These...

Attorney General Eric Holder is calling for major changes to the nation’s criminal justice system that would scale back the use of harsh prison sentences for certain drug-related crimes, divert people convicted of low-level offenses to drug treatment and community service programs and expand a prison program to allow for release of some elderly, non-violent offenders. In remarks prepared for delivery Monday to the American Bar Association in San Francisco, Holder said he is mandating a change to Justice Department policy so that low-level, non-violent drug offenders with no ties to large-scale organizations, gangs or cartels won’t be charged with...

Ask Your Representative To Oppose The Safe Access to Drug Treatment & Child Protection Act of 2004.H.R. 4547, "The Safe Access to Drug Treatment & Child Protection Act of 2004" would dramatically increase mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug offenses. Under the proposed legislation, sponsored by House Judiciary Chair James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), any person age 21 or over who attempts or conspires to offer marijuana to someone younger than 18 years old shall face a mandatory sentence of 10 years in prison. The mandatory penalty for a subsequent violation of the statute is life in prison. Defendants found to have...

Jacob Sullum'sSyndicated Column Pill Sham (4/23) Hair Net (4/16) Abetting Betting (4/9) Earlier Columns April 23, 2004 Pill Sham A man seeking pain relief gets 25 years for drug trafficking Jacob Sullum Here's a bit of legal information that may interest Rush Limbaugh: Under Florida law, illegally obtaining more than 28 grams of painkillers containing the narcotic oxycodone—a threshold exceeded by a single 60-pill Percocet prescription—automatically makes you the worst sort of drug trafficker, even if you never sold a single pill. Even if, like Richard Paey, you were using the drugs to relieve severe chronic pain. Although prosecutors...