The problem is when you flip it around and the lowest level people in the criminal Organization Get punished just like here the key. And thats the big problem in 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 and my case and everything that had gone wrong if you furthered the conspiracy in one step youre 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. And 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 the thing that sandy had manufactured thats where my ears came from my ears did. Things that came from 3700000 tablets of x. To say that he had manufactured puts me on the chart at this lab just 24 years thats 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 proportion. Punishment can be lost if this triggers a mandatory sentence to add insult to injury while im 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 its just plain different and those are the yangs in 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 youre 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 unamerican. But thats the way mandatory minimums are said. My mother calls me and she said well i need to tell you something. And im thinking the worst just while i may is featured in our magazine shes 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 doesnt 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 dont 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 with my parents for a while and she said because ive got to set you up on probation and i said why. I just said youre going home. And. I couldnt process it i was just right. My reaction was. I think i was sitting down so i stood up and i said theyre going to start and i sat down and i said what do you mean and she said youve gotten executive clemency president clinton has ordered you out and you have to be out today by 5 oclock 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 walk me across the come. 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. The truth as stated by the Nixon Administration is to create a drug free society. Thats what its all about why we spend the billions of dollars and incarcerate millions of people. Just to create a drug free society. And weve been at this now for good nor 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 weve been given a mission here that is impossible to achieve we saw a Violent Crimes go through the roof as these. Criminal gangster organizations fought one another so were 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 were 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 didnt know what it was cut with sometimes that indifference people would drink to some 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 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 harassing someone for committing rapes. When you arrest a rainbow or someone committing burglaries you know what. The burglary stopped when you arrest someone for dealing drugs dealing drugs doesnt 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 sioux name. The emphasis over from middle Justice System should be on violent offenses this is what 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 saved i dont know what to come out just as one of the be like without the war on drugs. My only experience of it has been during the war on drugs. When i started family in 1991 war on drugs really heated up in the eightys kept rolling through the ninetys you know sort of started tapering off and to thousands but its still alive and well its 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 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 im 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 in reform 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 james life sentence. 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 whos out the numerous cases i mean these are all excessively long cases these are you know you see colombian drug lords here you see mexico. The mexican drug lords here. We have to expect taishan bad when we lifted people out of poverty when we became richer then weve become. And i think valleys what a lot of people ah struggling with now they 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. Desists is a stick from the water bottle phone in the stomach of a fish the brand is spawns of the Cocacola Company which sells millions of bottles of soda every day the idea was that lets tell consumers there are the bad was there the litter bugs are throwing this away industry should be blamed for all this waste the company has long promised to reuse the plastic. That seems cool set their classes. On my end i need to stay on your phones at special projects funding me. On the new vest that is the end of a footy team but for now the mountains of waste only grow higher. I was so glad to to start to work my way out of 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. Already already has some experience and or move at a move back row. I called my old boss so he was in a Halfway House. At the time and i think someone i dont know what company happy im 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 and saying that he was going to go in for you know go into business for sam 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 by for here business i made about 30 some 1000. 00 or more for a c. E. O. I remember best im back into the business im buying tools a mile ladders some growing the business or take my 2nd year i read about he some. 3rd year i did about one a solo 1000 almost all it was surely progress and so now im up to half a 1000000. 00 next to normal to say i want to now. In the early 2999. 00 or early 2000 my folly went over the 1000000. 00 more. That while 10. 00 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 all. And they can make something of themselves if thats what they want. To certain way for so long in his forest. Way. Dad needs to be put out here. Because a lot of people dont know how to break to change from the street scene thats saying get a whole do you think 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 youve done you can because the same bull 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 drove up and down the street and sold drugs and did all this stuff im now a changed person and im now somebody that they can expire to also. Executive clemency was a bittersweet victory to be honest right there because it didnt 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 arent and. As long as theyre not then im 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 BarbaraMary Richardson theyve all done well over 20 years these are all guys who are serving life these are for pot hes for l. S. D. I have just got back from washington d. C. I was fair for a on a fun day. Is there about the whole clemency project thats happening and in fact i took. All these guys to the front in front of the white house and anyway theres several of them 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 prison capacity and during the 1990 s. We were building on average a prison a week and as soon as these prisons were built its important to emphasize that they were immediately filled up with 1st 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 western europe we lock up our citizens at 5. 00 to 10. 00 times the rate of those other nations its 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 new road. To crime then other comparable nations that have been its was only see him as a cursory. Seems to me to go i. Got a job. And. A lot of. Here and. Has over there. And the pass from their parents childrens lives and going to. Marry and conditional and. Loving and. Just because. Im ours. And spread jellicoe i want to 63706 my 1st encounter the or the present systems are pretty young. Life salad drugs you know starling the thing with me was i got out february i think it was 2012 within 3 months i got out of a macor fives fame arrest to sion paid. Child support paid everything i was thats. 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 officer i have to go to a program where id 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 couldnt believe i had made all this work im like i have all this to show you look at all this i have ive done it shes a youve done a lot but you still using drugs and its against the law. To get sentenced to 4 years for dirty youre in the houses. Its a lot watching your children grow up in michoud in wave and say bye daddy as youre walking out of the business it is just it doesnt get easier you dont stand and as you get older you think you become more custom of this but it never under any circumstances gets easier. As you did 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 i think. Im proud of you wrestling. Im glad youre sticking with it i know youre going so just like i said try to stick with it and you know why youre the manor house still the best you can take out the trash drive things you manners i love you so were very proud of you and youre going to those wonderful. Friends from 7 to 13 really growing up. And im sorry im not there to guide you. As much as life. Turned out pretty good and im very very proud. I really am. Now oh i dont know im sorry baby. I love ya vision very recently just got. So very proud of him i know he worked hard to tell me how you are doing one. Thing in your throat im so friends. And i. Want to know i love you and i miss you very much oh heres what i miss you and there is a culture that i went through that is. Anytime you hate me and you miss me theres a theres a gaping same things which you were i love you and i miss you all and i hope to see you soon and that he loves you. And its. The 4th of july. Because of the fact that so many of us have lived for 30 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 youre interested in reducing the injustice and you 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 to the drug laws because i think were in another situation where its very similar to the days of alcohol prohibition where the government has just declared millions and millions of people to be criminals and thats what theyve done with the stroke laws theyre 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 its so counterproductive. Its so inefficient wanted us to be why does it continue. Why are we going to be able to spot. On more issues of policy thats been going on since many evenings. Want to know so many lol that was meant to be in the major. Thats a very deeply disturbing indictment of the elite dont 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. As we speak large organized care of the bar on the march to the United States that. The end of play are coming up and a caring. Beings remain standing that. This is a virtual invasion of our country for so far. Bigger than anything anything. That i. Know of. In the form of. You know its going to fit in. A knife our feel. As you do is you know were going to see a more little girls who noticed this edition of. The. So the temporary orders that im under before i go to final trial actually do allow me to address them as james and his male pronouns but i cannot do that in front of 3rd parties who know him as a girl so basically i cant go to a school or keep them away from any friends he might have at school that known as a girl at my home hes known as james and i use male pronouns what im prohibited from doing right now is trying to convince him that hes actually a boy. You will not obey the voice of the lord your god will be careful to do all these commandments and the state you which i command you this day in all these courses shall come upon you and overtake you. And then the white people the stolen property and definitely must pretend to the people if they get rid of whites only problems will go away. The folks within the community as president of the free the. White foam is in so theyre free to go be had they are. People being tortured to death the elderly people in the. White horse will find themselves affected by. Means and greens its all sweat and lot of. What are you going to have for dinner today we dont have anything im asking for my. Feelings to be civil war in south africa never to. Profit from. Any chong not be in the tone of your hand to greet. The crisis overruns Nuclear Program enters a new phase to run further suspends compliance with the joint comprehensive plan of action after its deadline for sanctions relief. And the stories that ship the week russia pays tribute to the 14 so you are sure were killed in a fire on a Nuclear Submarine in the barents sea you on the day. The us fighter jets zooming through the skies of washington on tanks rolled through the streets this week donald trump comes under fire from the rising u. S. Independence day celebrations