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. 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 24 years

was established based on the sum total of all the acts to see that sandy had manufactured that's where my ears came from my ears did. things that came from 3700000 tablets of ecstasy that he had manufactured puts me on the chart at this lab just 24 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 24 years he comes back to the us and goes before the same judge the sentence me to 24 years and he got. 3 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 2 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 in the ng's 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 20 or 30 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 amy 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 and senator pryor and everyone started actually looking into the case and saying 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 15 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 going to 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 with 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. 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've gotten executive clemency president clinton has ordered you out and you have to be out today by 5 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 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 you will be put away and put away for good 3 strikes and you are. removed. 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. just to create a drug free society. and we've been at this now for a good nar for 40 years trillions of dollars into it no wind in signing 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 their rent is violent 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 prudish you know 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 bathrooms and still it was once in a teary he didn't know what it was cut but sometimes it indifference people would drink this and go on people who drink if you could 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 and such

a 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 burglaries 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. the one murderers and britain did they want murders and rapes solved and they want these people taken out of the community and locked away in prisons or communities can be safe 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 1991 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 styria in 1906 we must do something anything and that meant grasping at straws and not looking ahead at what the costs are going to be or 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 1989 i started the criminal justice policy foundation. and that is been the opportunity for me for the last 25 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 me 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 conceivably 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 change life sentence. danell clark 35 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 who's out numerous cases i mean these are all excessively long cases these are you know you see colombian drug lords here you see mexico guzman you see in the mexican drug lords here no. we have to be experts haitian bad when we lifted people out of poverty when we became richer then we'd become. and i think valerie's what a lot of people ah structuring was now the expected that once they reached

a certain level of income then they would be happy. and yet we create new size we create new things we want and i think sometimes we run out of explanations for why we feel unhappy. if you will not obey the voice of the lord your god will be careful to do all these commandments and the statutes. in all these courses shall come upon you and overtake you. and then the white people the stolen property and therefore it must be returned to black people if they get rid of whites only problems will go away. with and the. president of the flick of the whole. wide fall.

every single day. people being tortured to death expression the elderly people in the. mania somebody is. not been the case why of course will find themselves affected by credit and. point to what effect means in greens oh it's all sweats and a lot of. what are you going to have for dinner today we don't have anything i'm asking for might be bad feelings to the civil war in south africa never to. profit from was there any chong not be in the tone of your hand to get.

this morning to her letters to all right love with her go. 7 6 to the party that right. raise your bile actually. under. i was so glad to to start to work my way out of the prison. so going the clinton house was a halfway house you were halfway home but you were still open. so i got to clean the house all we already had some experience in the dorm roof at a movie back row. 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 roofing and his mother came to me and next we would i buy him appear. 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 have the ability to work again but i never missed a day i was always there i was always there hour early before anybody else get there. so unless i was home going 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. 20 dismayed is myna insane and he is going to go if you know go into business for yourself in the ass out all starting 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 30 some $1000.00 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 and i think my 2nd year party did about he somehow. 3rd year i did about 100000 some story bush surely progress and so now i'm up to half a $1000000.00 next to normal to say i want to 1000 miles. in early $2999.00 or early 2000 my family went over the $1000000.00 more. that while one home i never thought that i would call a $1000000.00 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 mission creep thing that's saying get a hold of you a single hold you want to you gary to be on the ball for. for me is to be that beacon of hope oh follow no matter where you come from the what you've done you can come out of that because the same bull for a soldier both of them. directly across the street for my office is used to set a bar called the nightlife. sold drugs out of that bar for a number of years inside and out so they have mobility that came before and 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 they're. a changed person and i'm now somebody

that they could expire 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 20 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 40 years ago there about a half a 1000000 people in prison. and today there are $2300000.00 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 present capacity and during the 1990 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 1st nurse and even today many of our prison

facilities are operating beyond their design capacity if you compare the u.s. with other industrialized nations canada or western europe we lock up her citizens at $5.00 to $10.00 times the rate of those other nations it's not that we have 5 or 10 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 the nuns was only see a massacre as. we go i. got a job. and. a lot of. parents. as it were they were. trying to ask for their parents children's lives and going to. marry and conditional and. loving and.

just because. i'm ours. bred jellicoe i want to 63706 my 1st 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 2012 within 3 months i got out they mccourt fives boehm arrest to sion paid. child support paid everything i was that's. i started 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 mean well the reality the 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 i'm like 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 4 years for dirty you're in the houses. it's a lot watching your children grow up in michoud in wave and say bye 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 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 manor house still 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 7 to 13 really growing up. and i'm sorry i'm not there to guide you. as much as i'd like. to turn out pretty good and i'm very very proud. i really am. now oh i don't know surrender my baby. i love ya vision very recently 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 the. road going.

once you know i love you here i miss you very much oh here's a man i miss you and there is a bunch of them that i went through it is more moments. any time you hate me you miss me there's a there's a gaping same things mom when she was. i love you and i miss you all and i hope to see you soon and that i love you. and it's. the 4th of july. because of the fact that so many of us have lived for 30 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 1st 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 they're danger of looking at one outrageous. after another can. do 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 spot. it more efficiently on the policy that's been going on since many evenings. want to know so many low level was meant to be in his major. that's a very easily the stormy indictment the ability to waste 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.

during the great depression which i'm old enough to remember there was and most of my family were unemployed. and it wasn't it was bed you know much worse objectively than today but there was an expectation that things were going to get better. of 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 at tax so low down to engineer elections manufacture consent and other principles according to no on chomsky one set of rules for the rich opposite set of rules for . that's what happens when you put her into the hands of a narrow sector of will switch will is dedicated to increasing power for itself just as you'd expect one of the most influential intellectuals of our time speaks about the modern civilization of america. what politicians do something. they put themselves on the line they get accepted over checked. so when you want to be president. some want to.

have to try to be precise it's like the 43 of them all can't be good. i'm interested always in the waters about how. this should. kind of financial final shot about money laundering 1st to visit this gas industry difference. is a good start well we have our 3 banks all set up here maybe something in your. something in america something over the cayman island you do know all these banks are complicit in that we just have to say ok i'm ready to do some serious money laundering ok let's see how we did well we've got a nice luxury watch for max and for stacy oh beautiful jewelry. again from that you know what money laundering is highly illegal don't you watch kaiser.

i'm going to think you're. president trump warns iran to be careful as a plans a further boost of its uranium enrichment program. breaking the 2015 nuclear deal for a 2nd time and drawing condemnation from e.u. nations and the u.s. . they're weighing in foreign minister blames europe for failing to secure the agreement or stop washington's you know that full withdrawal. also stories that shape the week russia pays tribute to the 14 sailors who were killed in a fire on a nuclear submarine in the barents sea on monday. and tanks rolled through the streets of washington on fighter jets zoomed.