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 organisation 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 end 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 so because i had collected some money on i technically was guilty of conspiracy was 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 to see that sandy had manufactured that's where my years came from my years dead and. things that i came from three point seven million tablets of ecstasy that he had manufactured puts me on the chart at this lab just twenty four years that's how i 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 to add insult to injury while i'm incarcerated for twenty four years he comes back to the us and goes before the same judge that sentenced me to twenty four year. there's 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 is situated the same it's just plain different and those are the yangs and the ngs of 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 and un-american. but that's the way mandatory minimums are set up. my mother calls me and she said well i need to tell you something. and i'm thinking the worst just while i may is featured in our 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 byrd and senator pryor and everyone started actually looking into the case and saying well what could have possibly happened here this just doesn't seem right my story in case started gaining momentum and we got 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 wow i guess what my parents for a while and she said because i've got to set you up on probation and i said why. i just said you're going home. and. i couldn't process it i

was just right. and. my reaction was are i think i was sitting down so i stood up and i said they're going to start and i sat down and i said what do you mean and she said you've gotten 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 home 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. we can confidently say today that we are finally beginning to win the war against

crime now is the time to show drug users that we mean 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 that's why we spend the billions of dollars and incarcerate millions of people. is to create a drug free society. we've been atthis now for good marks 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 violent crimes go through the roof as these. criminal gangster organizations 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 there are endless 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 prevision the richest man in the country was ok he controlled if you tried to get in his 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 when it 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 a little time and the difference between arresting someone for dealing drugs and arresting someone for committing rapes are. when you arrest the rainbow for someone committing burglaries you know what the rapes stop. the burglary stop when you arrest one 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 criminal 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 and locked away in prison so that our communities can be safe i don't know what to come out just as well to 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 it sort of started tapering off and then two thousand but it's still alive and well it's like pounding funder of anti drug is 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 in my office i'm still very active with students for sensible drug policy. and with one force me against prohibition. and so a lot of my work is advocacy. strategizing you know what are the ways to change drug policy and before from the justice system. there are. countless numbers of people who are in prison for inconceivably long sentences for being minor minor offenders in the drug trade these are just a handful of you know files from families against mandatory minimums. where are these people you know james. clark thirty five years

timothy tyler life said. 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 pieces i mean these are all long cases these are your colombian drug lords here you see mexico. the mexican drug lords here no. water bottle phone in the stomach of

a fish the brand is part of the coca-cola company which sells millions of bottles of soda every day the idea was that let's tell consumers there are the bad ones there are the litter bugs are throwing this away industry should be blamed for all this waste to company has promised to reuse the plastic. on. the mountains of waste only grow. we have no political agenda here. if it costs more to. get when you get it out. a loss it's a minus sign that's it if you can figure that out. you think there's a political agenda that you're blinded by your five.

join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics small business i'm show business i'll see that. during the great depression which i'm old enough to remember there was most of my family were unemployed working class there wasn't it was bed you know much worse objectively than today but there was an expectation that things are going to get better. there was a real sense of hopefulness there isn't today today's america was shaped by the turn principles of concentration of wealth and power. reduced democracy attack solo doubt engineer elections manufacture consent and other principles

according to no i'm jones to one set of rules for the rich opposite set rules for. that's what happens when you put power into the hands of a narrow sector of will switch will is dedicated to increasing power for just as you'd expect one of the most influential intellectuals of our time speaks about the modern civilization of america. i was so glad to to start to work my way out of the prism. so go in the clinton house was a halfway house you were half way old but you were still open. so i got the clinton house always already has some experience into a groove at a movie background. i called my old boss so he was in

a halfway house at the 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 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 home growing 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 of insane he was going to go if you know go into business for yourself in a salad 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 shit. 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 summed out. third year i did about one a solo thousand almost all it was surely progress and so now i want to have a million dollars next to normal to say i want to thousand miles. in the early two thousand. and two thousand my family will hold a 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 themselves you can bring. a person out of prison. and they can have nothing and they can make something of

themselves if that's what they want. to live to certain way for so long in his forest. became a 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 off only you a single hold you want to die to be on the ball of war. for me is to be that beacon of hope oh no matter where you come from the what you've done you can because the same soul drove. directly across the street for my office this used to sit a bar called the night light. sold drugs out of that war for a number of years inside and out so they have mobility almost it became before and then to show people that yes i was that once drove up and down the street and sold drugs and did all that stuff i'm now

a changed person and i'm now somebody that they can 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 wash. see 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 of them that i stood out in front of the white house advocating for their clemency when i started practicing law almost forty years ago there were 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 ners and even today many of our prison

facilities are operating beyond their design capacity if you compare the us with other industrialized nations canada or western europe we lock up are citizens of 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 new approach to crime then other comparable nations that have announced was only seen as a cursory. seems to me to go i. will and. a lot of. parents. are there. and the child has from their parents children's lives and are going to. marry and conditional and. loving and. just because.

i'm ours. dread jellicoe one to six thirty seven zero six my first encounter of the of the prison systems are pretty young. lifestyle 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 fame arrests to sion paid. child support paid everything i. zero. 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 go to probation offices i have to go to a program where i'd be urine test regularly or go to a mean well the reality fact is a 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 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 that 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 michoud in wave and say by daddy as you're walking out of a visit it's just it doesn't get easier you don't stand and as you get older you think you become more custom of this but never under any circumstances gets easier . for. 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 so i just want to start off by saying that thank you i'm proud of

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 did the best you can take out the trash drive things you're manners i love you so we're very proud of you of those wonderful. little variance from seven to thirteen really grown up. and i'm sorry i'm not there to go. and you as much life. turned out pretty good and i'm very very proud. i really am. now oh i don't surrender my baby. i love you no vision very recently you just got. so very proud i know you worked hard to tell me how you were doing when. you're strong so friends. and i'm. going

to want to know i love you here i miss you very much oh here's a man i miss you and there is a bunch of women that i went through it is more moments. any time you hate me you miss me there's a there's a new evening 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 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 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 really. just days after another can. blind you to the broader perspective that they are so many excuses these are actually the typical this is the system it is flawed the unjust and that it is so wasteful it's so counterproductive. it's so inefficient wanted us to be why

does it continue. why are we going to be able to start. on the more efficient policy between going on since many evenings mom want to know so many lol that was meant to be his major. that is a very evil stormin indictment in the elite always so much treasure. and inflict so much more. and cause so much injustice in a society where our radios are about liberty and justice for all.

the news in the world. are. under water. total around go to. not he didn't know. oh you ought to go to a post pizza to move for your. welcome to max kaiser financial survival guide. looking forward to your pension

down. yanks this is what happens to pensions in britain don't let this happen to you watch kaiser report. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy you confront cation let it be an arms race is often very dramatic development only a silly and interviews east i don't see how that strategy will be successful very critical time to sit down and talk. they can come and blow our brains out at any given time and we can't really do anything actually america is the only country in the world where you can kill

people. war illegally get away with. all of the fire crawls still brilliant all the trouble here is three failed points it's hollow flame to k.k.k. exists because america wants it to exist they have the biggest terrorist group to ever operate in this country and they're dead to me they're worse also than the people who destroyed the world trade centers. why.

may day. two hundred fifty people. on the program the u.s. attorney general. special. investigation. testified in front of the senate for the first time since the release of. wiki leaks founder. weeks.

before spending the next seven years in london.