These 32 People Are Spending Their Lives In Prison For Nonviolent Crimes

[Tx4obama]

These 32 People Are Spending Their Lives In Prison For Nonviolent Crimes

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Booker is one of more than 100 prisoners featured in an extensive new report from the American Civil Liberties Union on the rise of life sentences without the possibility of parole -- the harshest penalty faced by defendants in the American criminal justice system apart from death. Many such inmates are there "off the laws," as Booker put it, meaning they were incarcerated because of drug laws and not because they committed acts of violence. The report calculates that 3,278 prisoners were serving life without parole for drug, property and other nonviolent crimes as of 2012, comprising about 6 percent of the total life-without-parole, or LWOP, population.

The thousands of nonviolent crimes that have resulted in LWOP sentences include possession of a crack pipe, a smudge of heroin in a bottle cap, and "a trace amount of cocaine in clothes pockets that was so minute it was invisible to the naked eye and detected only in lab tests," according to the report. In each case, the defendant had previously been convicted of other crimes -- often decades-old and mostly of the non-violent variety.

Prisoners serving life without parole make up one of the fastest-growing populations in the prison system, according to the ACLU's analysis of data from the United States Sentencing Commission, the federal Bureau of Prisons and state corrections departments. The report attributes this rise partly to the prevalence of mandatory-minimum sentencing laws and other punitive drug policies embraced by lawmakers who hoped to define themselves as "tough on crime" in the '80s and '90s.

In recent years, the rhetoric that accompanied the passage of those laws has begun to shift, with legislators from both sides of the aisle introducing measures that would soften the country's approach to drug crimes. Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) are just some of the more prominent figures to take up the cause in Congress, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has called for sweeping, systemic changes to a "broken" justice system, directing federal prosecutors to step away from drug cases.

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PHOTOS of the 35 people with a short summary beneath each are HERE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/13/life-without-parole_n_4256789.html

[truedelphi]

1. The drug war era is fading, hopefully.

And one of the top orders of business is to get people behind bars released, if they are there only on account of a mandatory minimum sentence, that a judge couldn't ignore (supposedly,although you have to wonder if it was their family member, if they wouldn't get really creative.)

Two sad cases come to mind:

One was a young woman who was attending a community college, with high hopes for her future. Her grandmother had died and left her a nice amount of money, so she had bought herself a condo.

In that condo complex, was a mean ass drug dealer who fancied her. She wanted nothing to do with him, and spurned his advance. So when he got busted, on account of cocaine dealings, he implicated her - and the local police planted some coke in her home.

The drug dealer got two things from implicating her - a shorter sentence, as if you "flip"on someone else you get rewarded. And he also got some revenge on her for not going out with him.

She had no one to flip on, so she ended up with a 20 year mandatory sentence.

The second story is about a guy who worked in an industrial area in the East Bay of San Francisco Greater Metropolis. A co-worker asked him for a ride home. And the guy willingly obliged; he didn't know this co-worker that well, but he always helped people.

Well, unbeknowst to the car owner, the co-worker was making a drug deal at a local fast food place. When the co-worker asked if they couldn't stop at the restaurant, the driver said, "Sure, why not."

And the drug deal was a set up the DEA. So the co worker got busted. But get this, the driver, whose only crime was offering to help by giving a ride, and had no knowledge of the drug deal underway, was considered under the law as a drug courier. And he got a mandatory twenty years.

[Tx4obama]

2. Bump

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Ridiculous - and cruel and unusual punishment (nt)

[Liberal_in_LA]

4. kick