when this sale took place he's a conspirator and so part of the goal of the conspiracy law is to make sure that the most senior level all of those in the criminal organization are justly punished the problem is when you flip it around and the lowest level people in the criminal organization get punished just like they are the key. and that's the big problem and the way in which the conspiracy laws are being applied. i know that up in federal prison in dublin california i realized that i would need to spend a lot of time in the law library and i needed to film from a arise my sound my case and everything that had gone wrong if you furthered the conspiracy one step you're guilty for everything in the conspiracy no matter when you entered the conspiracy it could have been on the last day. because i had collected some money on i technically was guilty of conspiracy. held

responsible for everything that everybody else had done and my sentence my twenty four years was established based on the sum total of all the acts the thing that sandy had manufactured that's where my ears came from my years did. things that came from three point seven million tablets of x. the thing that he had manufactured puts me on the chart at this lab just twenty four years that's how a judge sentences you based on a chart the way the sentencing laws apply to conspiracy. being subject to being punished for all the conduct that everybody in the conspiracy has been involved in. so the idea of proportional punishment can be lost if this triggers a mandatory sentence. and insult to injury while i'm incarcerated for twenty four

years he comes back to the us and goes before the same judge this sent me to twenty four years and he got three years probation because he cooperated and snatched out everybody. the person who comes in early and cooperates usually ends up with a lower sentence than the person in the conspiracy who walks up two days before the trial and tenders a plea that sentence will be different even though they may be situated the same it's just plain different and those are the yangs in the sentencing process that the court has not a whole lot of control over and the u.s. attorneys and the prosecuting attorneys have control over but it does result in a different sentence when you're facing something like twenty or thirty years. you have people that are are doing things they never thought they would do which is turn in their friends testify against friends sometimes they will even make up.

false information to testify falsely against people just in order to get themselves out from under the terrible legal situation they are in the pressure to provide information is huge and coercive. my mother calls me and she said well i need to tell you something. and i'm thinking the worst just while amy is featured in a magazine she's been in prison for a number of years and why that was such a catalyst was suddenly we had something tangible to hand to people the community found out and my brother got involved and my father and senator and senator pryor and everyone started actually looking into the case and saying well what could have possibly have hastened started gaining momentum and we've gotten i think up to fifteen politicians wrote letters supporting my clemency when i read it i

was i was sympathetic. because i thought. that her husband was the primary driver of the offense she was clearly had a subordinate role needs. and she was caught up in the way of these conspiracy laws that are extremely broad ranging and you don't have to do very much to be to get yourself stuck in a case like i went to my case managers office and walked in the door and she said she was in a frenzy and she said you know where are you going to release to and i was like what do you mean and she said were you going to live when you get out of prison and i said well i guess with my parents for a while and she said because i've got to set you up on probation and i said why i couldn't process it i was just right. and. my

reaction was are. what do you mean she said you got an executive clemency president clinton has ordered you out and you have to be out today by five o'clock the president had granted her petition and she was told that afternoon and evening they let her out that day it was really great because we always got bad news in there nobody ever got. it was really nice to have all the women want me across the compound and there was that moment in the compound of victory but it was really hard to because you have to leave you have to leave so many people behind. we can confidently say to you that we are finally beginning to win the war to reach our goal of a drug free generation in the united states you will be put away and put away for good three strikes and you are. the primary mission of the drug war

as stated by the nixon administration is to create a drug free society. that's what it's all about why we spend the billions of dollars and incarcerate millions of people. is to create a drug free society. and we've been at this now for a good mark for forty years trillions of dollars into it no wind in sight really within a reasonable person says how much closer are we to creating a drug free society. you begin to realize that perhaps we've been given a mission here that is impossible to achieve we saw a violent crimes go through the roof as these. criminal gangster organisations fought one another so we're seeing that type of phenomenon today in our major metropolitan areas like los angeles the crips against the bloods and of course their rent is filings that we're seeing in mexico and in places like south america

as these very rich powerful cartels fight one another it lines up perfectly with alcohol prohibition when you look at oklahoma probation the richest man in the country was ok he controlled if you tried to get into this market he would kill you there were also kinds of sub factions they trying to to manufacture it in their bathtubs and still it was unseen and terry you didn't know what it was cut with sometimes at any freeze people would drink this group of people who drink it to get cirrhosis kids would die in the crossfire it sounds all too familiar to this exactly was happening on the streets today in the united states going to comes to getting violence in the drug one of the problems that we have a drug prohibition is so different of a business you make so much money in such little time and the difference between arresting someone for dealing drugs and arresting someone for committing rapes are . when you arrest the rainbow's someone committing burglaries you know what the rapes stop. the burglary stock when you arrest someone for dealing drugs dealing

drugs doesn't stop on that corner you just create a job opportunity for someone else to come in and unfortunately when a job is filled with usually some fighting sioux name. people. the emphasis over from middle justice system should be on violent offenses this is where most people are concerned about. they won murderers and branded they want murders and rapes solved and they want these people. taken out of the community locked away in prisons or communities can be saved i don't know what the criminal justice one of the be like without the war on drugs. my only experience of it has been during the war on drugs. and i started family in one thousand nine hundred ninety one war on drugs really heated up in the eighty's kept rolling through the ninety's you know sort of started tapering off and then to thousands but it's still

alive and well it's like a pounding funder of anti drug as styria in one thousand nine hundred six we must do something anything and that meant grasping at straws and not looking ahead at what the costs are going to be and what might be effective while i was on the hill i increasingly became convinced that the war on drugs was a mistake it was. counterproductive and i wanted to put my energy into ending it and so in january one thousand nine hundred eighty nine i started the criminal justice policy foundation. and that is been the opportunity for me for the last twenty five years to. mobilize different kinds of strategies to end drug prohibition a lot of it has been through other organizations i helped start families against mandatory minimums and my office i'm still very active with students for sensible

drug policy. and with one force really against prohibition. and so a lot of my work is advocacy. strategizing you know what are the ways to change drug policy that before from the justice system. there are. countless numbers of people who are in prison for inconceivably long sentences for being minor minor offenders. these are just a handful of you know files from families against mandatory minimums where these people you know james felt life sentence. clark thirty five years timothy tyler life sentence. sure on the jones life sentence. this is not an aberration this is the life blood this is the typical case this is

the typical clarence aaron whose numerous cases i mean these are all excessively long cases these are you know you see colombian drug lords here you see mexico chapal guzman you seen the mexican drug lords here. after the previous stage of my career was over everyone wondered what i was going to do next about different clubs on one hand it is logical to sort of go from fields where everything is familiar on the other i wanted a new challenge and a fresh perspective i'm used to surprising. i'm going to talk about football not or else you think i was going to go.

by the way ways of. yes to all this is how the.

thank you. someone. both they are what they cost. for you. to come up for fair and i don't still think i want to. justify. something awful because a couple of i don't. think he got money. well of course they would be ok sunny i want to know for a while for you if they think you know how to save us fishing to help you want to steal from. home for nothing. now that in a way out of fear for their. own one i feel as if the united is so.

i was so glad to to start to work my way out of the prison. so go in the clinton house was a halfway house you were half way old but you were still. so i got the clinton house all we already had some experience indoor roof had a roof background. i called my old boss. halfway house at that time and i think someone i don't know what company happy i'm doing rufus and his mother came to me and next we would like him appear shoes that he needed to do his group and and he just blossom he just blossomed from there i was so happy to be at work and not be to be have the ability to work again that i never missed a day i was always there i was always there hour early before anybody else get

there. so in essence i was hungry i was hungry to work i was hungry to be free. and have the ability to change my life around so all those stains. made me a good employee in a mentally dismayed as mine an insane he was going to go if you know go into business for yourself in the ass out all starting i just really felt that i had what it took to be entrepreneur and to be successful. so i quit my job and i was fully fledged into business then i had to leave i froze year business i made about thirty some thousand dollars or more for a c.e.o. . i remember a vest i'm back into the business i'm buying tools a mile ladders some growing the business or take my second year i read about he somehow. third year i did about one a solo thousand some stall it was surely progress and so now i want to have

a million dollars next year normal to say i want to thousand miles. in the early two thousand nine hundred ninety nine our old two thousand my family went over the million dollar more. that while one zero i never thought that i would call a million dollar business. a person has to have a dream. you know they have to want to do better for them snuff and and they can make something of themselves if that's what they want. well you lived a certain way for so long and as far as. the way. that needs to be put out here. because a lot of people don't know how to break to change from the street scene that's saying get a hold do you. want to do. to be all that bull or. for me is to be that beacon of hope. no matter where you come from the what you do and

you can because the same sold drugs are. directly across the street for my office is used to set a bar called the night light. sold drugs out that door for a number of years inside and out so they have mobility the kid that read up and down the street sold drugs and did all this stuff to. a changed person and somebody that they could expire to also. executive clemency was a bittersweet victory to be honest right there because it didn't take me very long . after i got out and the excitement exhilaration wore off that i realized that that. i may be free. so many of my friends and other people aren't and. as long as they're not then i'm not really so i started the can do foundation which

is clemency for all nonviolent drug offenders to try to continue to help some of the women i left behind i did time with danielle barbara mary richardson they've all done well over twenty years these are all guys who are serving life these are for pot he's for l.s.d. . i have just got back from washington d.c. i was there for a on a fundraiser about the whole clemency project that's happening and in fact i took. all these guys to the front in front of the white house and anyway there's several that i stood out in front of the white house advocating for their clemency. when i started practicing law almost forty years ago there are about a half a million people in prison. and today there are two point three million people in prison billions of dollars have been poured into the prison expansion not only of

the federal prison capacity but billions have been sent to say local governments to expand their present capacity and during the one nine hundred ninety s. we were building on average a prison a week and as soon as these prisons were built it's important to emphasize that they were immediately filled up with first nurse and even today many of our prison facilities are operating beyond their design capacity if you compare in the u.s. with other industrialized nations canada or western europe we lock up our citizens at five to ten times the rate of those other nations it's not that we have five or ten times the rate of crime of those other nations but we have consciously chosen to have a much more unity to broach to him then other comparable nations that have announced it was only see him as a cursory. seems to me to go i.

got a job. and. here and. there was. a chance to ask for their parents children's law is going to. marry and conditional and. loving and. just because. i'm ours. bred jellicoe i want to six thirty seven zero six my first encounter of the of the prison systems are pretty young. lifestyle of drugs you know starling the thing with me was i got out february i think it was two thousand and twelve within three months i got out they mccourt fives boehm arrest to sion paid. child support paid everything i was that's. i start my own business i got a vehicle had tags had a license and. in october that year i decided smokes weed and i thought the worst

case scenario if i get a probation officer i have to go to a program where i'd be urine test regularly or go to a meet well the reality fact is dirty urine is a violation and probation officer i have was new and she was a stickler for the law and she violated me their own spot i wept like a little child i couldn't believe i had all made all this work on my i have all this to show you look at all this i have i've done it she's a you've done a lot but you still using drugs and it's against the law. to get sentenced to four years for dirty you're in the houses. it's a lot watching your children grow up in issue and wave and say bye daddy as you're walking out of a business it is just it doesn't get easier you don't stand and as you get older you think you become more customer this but it never under any circumstances gets easier. it is how you do on.

c.n.n. . i want to say thank you for spending as much time as you do at the halles watching everybody all moms at work i know you miss out on playtime i know you miss out on a lot of banks i just want to start off by saying thank you how how do you wrestling. i'm glad you're sticking with it i know you're going so just like i said try to stick with it and you know why you're the man of house still the best you can take out the trash drive things you're man or i love you so we're very proud of you both of those wonderful. varies from seven to thirteen. and i'm sorry i'm not there to guide you. as much as life. turned out pretty good and i'm very very proud. i really am. now oh i don't know i'm sorry

baby. i love ya vision very recently you just got. so very proud and i know you worked hard to tell me how you were doing one. means you're strong so friends. and i. want you know i love you here i miss you very much oh here when i miss you when there is a bunch of moon that i went through it is. any time you hate me you miss me there's a there's a gaping same things mama she was. i love you and i miss you all and i hope to see you soon and that he loves you. it's. the fourth of july. because of

the fact that so many of us have lived for thirty years in this box of mandatory sounds and federal sentencing guidelines and you know the drug war we have to start breaking out of that box and thinking about a world away that out the outside of those confines if you're interested in reducing the injustice and to see mass incarceration you have to go to the root of the problem which is too many laws on the books and what is the primary problem there as far as prioritizing which was ought to go first top of my list is to the drug laws because i think we're in another situation where it's very similar to the days of alcohol prohibition where the government has just declared millions and millions of people to be criminals and that's what they've done with the stroke laws there danger of looking at one out we just. after another can. blind you to the broader perspective that there are so many excuses and these are

actually the typical this is the system it is broadly unjust and that it is so wasteful it's so counterproductive it's so inefficient one of us to be why does he continue. why are we going to be able to spot. more fish in the policy it's been going on since man it is six months one of those so many low level as many as major. that's a very evenly disturbing indictment in the elite always so much treasure. and conflict so much more. and cause so much injustice in a society where our credos are about liberty and justice for all.

congo. the maternity town the slums go in and you may never get out.

by teenage gang rules here. wanna. be my. mother. but. the navy will. kill. my seeing her. and now it's looking for the yeah what i knew is that as soon as the valid but not in. the mccain. communes all i see. there was none to trade or labor there's an environment standouts in the original

enough that the five years ago those were kicked out because relations were more punitive but now the religion is very very close intertwined so i think it's ok to have a new treaty and you negotiation. during the great depression which i'm old enough to remember there was most of my family were employed. there wasn't it was bed you know much worse objective listen today but there was an expectation of the things were going to get better. there was a real sense of hopefulness there isn't today today's america where shaped by the ten principles of concentration of wealth and power. reduced democracy attack solo douched engineer elections manufacture consent and other press. spodes according to. one set of rules for the rich opposite.

that's what happens when you put her into the. narrows sector of will switch is dedicated to increasing power for chills just as you'd expect one of the most influential intellectuals of our time speaks about the modern civilization of america. will protest script venezuela while the us resorts to sanctions and threats in a bid to i was president with dora we report on washington's approach to the latin american country. the other best movement once again with marches across the country for the seventeenth consecutive weekend. and islamics a fight to surrender to u.s. backed forces and the syrian. terrorists are routed from the last stronghold near

the iraqi border. is calling bright the new center in the russian capital before we get on to our program we have some breaking news and details of the most only a few minutes ago a passenger plane carrying one hundred forty nine passengers and crew.