NEW YORK TIMES Editorial: …Presidents Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Lincoln, and Truman viewed the clemency process as a central mission of the office. But the concept of mercy went out of fashion by the 1980s, when the country embarked on a mandatory sentencing craze that barred judges from exercising leniency when it was clearly warranted and placed the justice system almost entirely in the hands of prosecutors. As a consequence, even first-time offenders were largely viewed as beyond redemption.
These laws drove up the prison population 10-fold and filled the jails with young, low-level drug offenders who were confined far longer than their offenses warranted. They also created a large and growing class of felons, who are trapped permanently at the margins of society by postprison sanctions — laws that bar them from jobs and housing, strip them of the right to vote and make it difficult for them to obtain essential documents like driver’s licenses.
The perpetual punishment model of justice has had far-reaching consequences. Politicians stayed as far away from clemency as they could, fearing that voters would view them as soft on crime. Meanwhile, at the Justice Department, the clemency process — which had been a cabinet-level responsibility — fell under the authority of prosecutors who seemed to view even reasonable lenience as a threat to the prosecutorial order. The time required to handle clemency applications went from months to years; the backlog grew; the stream of mercy that had once flowed began to dry up… (more)
EDITOR: We are taught that Justice should be tempered with Mercy. President Barack Obama has shown scant mercy over his tenure in office. It is time for hundreds if not a thousand to have their terms shortened and / or their offenses pardoned.
Justice will not always be properly meted out in general and also on the individual basis. When we learn better, corrective actions should be taken. From our dealing, we know that the Federal Court judges had privately urged greater flexibility and leniency on the Bush Administration.
While Newslanc often indulges our fantasy that almost innocent drug users and dealers are unjustly incarcerated, people affected by those criminals know better. No one wants people incarcerated needlessly but no one can tell us how to separate the deserved from the undeserved inmate. The lesson of Willie Horton is not easily forgotten, nor should it be.
Editor: The lesson of Willie Horton? He was not encarcerated on drug charges. He was a vicious murderer. He was released on a weekend forlough when he committed additional crimes. See below:
WIKIPEDIA: “On October 26, 1974, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Horton and two accomplices robbed Joseph Fournier, a 17-year-old gas station attendant, and then fatally stabbed him 19 times after he had cooperated by handing over all of the money in the cash register. His body was dumped in a trash can. Fournier died from blood loss.[2] Horton was convicted of murder, sentenced to life imprisonmentwithout the possibility of parole, and incarcerated at the Northeastern Correctional Center in Massachusetts.[3]”
Parsing, Parsing, Parsing More of the story from Wikipedia.
“On June 6, 1986, he was released as part of a weekend furlough program but did not return. On April 3, 1987 in Oxon Hill, Maryland, Horton twice raped a local woman after pistol-whipping, knifing, binding, and gagging her fiancé. He then stole the car belonging to the man he had assaulted. He was later shot and captured by Corporal Yusuf Muhammad (formerly named Joseph Bell) of the Prince George’s County Police Department after a pursuit. On October 20, Horton was sentenced in Maryland to two consecutive life terms plus 85 years. The sentencing judge, Vincent J. Femia, refused to return Horton to Massachusetts, saying, “I’m not prepared to take the chance that Mr. Horton might again be furloughed or otherwise released. This man should never draw a breath of free air again.”[4]
On April 18, 1996, Horton was transferred to the Jessup Correctional Institution (then called the Maryland House of Correction Annex), a maximum security prison in Jessup, Maryland, where he remains.[5]
Democratic Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis was the governor of Massachusetts at the time of Horton’s release, and while he did not start the furlough program, he had supported it as a method of criminal rehabilitation. The State inmate furlough program was actually signed into law by Republican Governor Francis W. Sargent in 1972. However, under Sargent, convicted first-degree murderers were not eligible for furlough. After the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that this right extended to first-degree murderers, the Massachusetts legislature quickly passed a bill prohibiting furloughs for such inmates. However, in 1976, Dukakis vetoed this bill arguing it would ‘cut the heart out of efforts at inmate rehabilitation’.[6] The program remained in effect through the intervening term of governor Edward J. King and was abolished during Dukakis’ final term of office on April 28, 1988. This abolition occurred only after the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune had run 175 stories about the furlough program and won a Pulitzer Prize.[7]”
What does Newslanc expect these drug dealers to do when released?
I agree with the responder. We do not need the head of the country to micromanage the judicial system. Some jail terms are very stupid and excessive for minor crimes, but the three strikes felony convictions seem very appropriate to me.
Too many people in this country know the legal system is often a joke. Taxpayers are too cheap to insist on adequate jail sentences for violent criminals and very intelligent white collar criminals also.