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 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 ecstasy that sandy had manufactured that's where my ears came from my years did. 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 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 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 the sentence 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 in.

with a lower sentence than the person in the conspiracy who walks up two days before the trial and tenders a pally that sentence will be different even though they may be situated the same it's just plain different and those are the yangs and the sayings of the sentencing process that the court has not a whole lot of control over 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 sent. 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 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 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 to morning my clemency when i read it i was i was sympathetic. because i thought. that. her husband was the primary driver of the

if she was clearly had a subordinate role in these. and she was caught up in the. conspiracy laws. 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 and she said you're going home. and. i couldn't process it i was just like. and. my reaction was. 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 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 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 walk me across the compound and there was that moment on 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 today that we are finally beginning to win the war against now is the time to show drug users that we mean to reach our goal of a drug free generation in the united states if 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 billions of dollars and incarcerate millions of people is to create a drug free society. and we've been at this now hard for forty years trillions of dollars into it no wind in sight really and when 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 violence 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 prove issue 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 once in a teary he didn't know what it was cut with sometimes it in a 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 because this exactly was happening on the streets today in the united states going to comes to getting violence and 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. when you arrest the rapists or 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 viciously so fighting to name. the emphasis over criminal justice system should be on violent offenses this is where most people are concerned about. they won birders 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 the criminal justice one of them be like without the war on drugs. my only experience of it has been during the war on drugs. when 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 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 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 law enforcement against prohibition. and so a lot of my work is advocacy. strategizing you know what are the ways to change drug policy to reform 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 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 no.

you know world of big partisan movies a lot and conspiracy it's time to wait to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door. and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now we're watching closely watching the hawks. had us. most of the later flight of the reason. is because shuttle looks funny that we all can see this well knowing it will suit us to just like he was drinking in the suit somewhere we will use it even though we know mostly focused as

a political aspect is going to hurt all of that when i don't discuss the subject side of him no interest to us just what is still pranksters therefore we try to do something floyd lets you know play a joke or salute. the need to know more in the long. run though or a. total room go up. or not he did not know. oh you ought to go to all just gets to move for you.

i was so glad to to start to work my way out of the prison. so going the clint house was a halfway house you were halfway home but it was still open. so i got the clint house. already already has some experience indoor roof had a roof background. i called my old boss so he was in the halfway house at the time and i think someone i don't know what company happy i am doing roofing and his mother came to me and next we would like him appear shoes that he needed to do his roof and and he just bought some he just blossomed from there i was so happy to be at work and be there but have the ability to work again that i never missed. 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 had the ability to change my life around so all those stains. made me a good employee in a mentally dismayed as mine a infant he was going to go in for you know go into business for sam and that's 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 and i believe 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 so i'm growing the business and i think my second year party did about he some. third year i did about one a solo thousand some slowly but surely progress and so now i'm up to half a million dollars next to normal to say i want to go out. in the early two thousand nine hundred ninety nine or early two thousand my family went over the

million dollar more. so wow wow no 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. when you lived a certain way for so long and came as far as he. became a way. that needs to be put out here. because a lot of people don't know how to break the chain from this unique thing that's saying get a hold of you a single hold you want. to be all that bull for. me is to be that beacon of hope. no matter where you come from the better what you do and you can come out of that because the same billboard i sold drugs on. 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 almost it became before and then to show people that yes i was that once the drug dealer that read up and down the street sold drugs and did all that stuff there i'm now a changed person and i'm now somebody that they can expire and to also. executive clemency was a better sweet 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 and 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 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 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 sate local governments to expand their prison 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 nurses 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. choose him then other comparable nations and have the next was only see him as a cursory. seems to me though i've.

got a job. and. a lot. of other. tasks on their merit and children's lives and 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 for the prison systems are pretty young. lifestyle of drugs you know star early 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 was that's. zero. i start my own business i got a vehicle had tags had a license and everything in october that year i decided smokes weed and i thought

the worst case scenario if i go to the probation office i have to go to a program where i'd be urine test regularly or go to a meeting well the reality in 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 that you've done a lot but you still using drugs and it's against the law. to get sentenced to four years for a dirty year in the houses. it's a lot watching your children grow up in issue in waves and say bye daddy as you're walking out of the 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 never under any circumstances gets easier. as

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 that thank you 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 a house still the best you can take out the trash drive things you manners i love you so very proud of you and here goes one of. us from seven to thirteen really growing up. 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 so right my 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 when. you're strong so friends. and i. want to know i love you here i miss you very much oh here's what i miss you and there is a culture that i went through it is more moments or any time you take me you miss me there's a there's a gaping same things mom would choose. i love you and i miss you all and i hope to see you soon and that he loves you. and 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 sentences 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 do 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 outrageous. 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 wanted us to be why does it continue. why are we going to be able to start. more efficiently on the policy and it's been going on since man it is six months i want to know so many low level is meant to be his major. that's a very easily disturbing indictment the waste so much treasure. and inflicts so much more. and cause so much injustice in a society where our radios are about liberty and justice for all.

if it were a prius or the other the fifth flood. but if. i might need it it was my go to. look. at is its appeal to

all of the good of. the good of the banana at best it's a liberal still it was bad. enough well it was pretty good way to live the. kind of what used to which could go out on me. but i. feared to leave you in the new yellow did you still on the ledge you see them i look down from moods are bastards in the clue which are coconspirators some are good. during the great depression which i'm old enough to remember there was most of my family were unemployed. and it 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 doubt engineer elections manufacture consent and other principle holds according to know on. one set of rules for the rich office a set of rules for. that's what happens when you put her into the hands of the narrow sector of will switch will 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. oh any head of state to believe your photo. is going to show up to looks funny you

know we often see this woman you know wrinkle super sick just like she was drinking in that suit so where we will use it even though we're even mostly focused on the little girl aspects that are. going to discuss subjects i don't listen don't interest to us because there's still bring sr you know therefore we tried to offer something slips you know play a joke or salute. maybe .

an empty chair greeted the house judiciary committee and son of the u.s. attorney general on the flank of hearing into his handling of the report into alleged trump russian allusion the question was printed in a circus with one member brandishing a chicken probably. chicken bar should have shown up today and answered questions think yesterday proves not terrified to sit before anybody still in the circus continues over here. also this hour julian assange has defense team claims the fight for the whistleblowers freedom is now in full swing as a british court holds a first meeting over whether or not to extradite the wiki leaks co-founder to the united states. and a large anti-government protest rocks the venezuelan capital a day after what appears to have been a failed coup.