Here’s a look at what Joe Biden’s executive actions do and don’t do and what it could mean for America’s burgeoning multibillion-dollar marijuana markets.
In 1969, when Pew first started asking people how they felt about marijuana legalization, just 12 percent of Americans thought weed should be legalized.
In 2010, a federal judge sentenced Tony DeJohn to life plus 10 years on a nonviolent marijuana charge. Because it was DeJohn’s third marijuana-related conviction, the judge was required by law to impose the maximum penalty available. He was just 31 years old. Eleven years later, DeJohn, who is from Upstate New York but had been locked up in high-security facilities in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Colorado, was granted clemency by then-President.
When Donald Trump pardoned Steve Bannon last week, the outgoing president blocked the former White House strategist s prosecution for bilking donors to an organization that claimed to be raising money for a wall along the border with Mexico. When Trump granted a commutation to Craig Cesal, by contrast, he freed a man who had already served 17 years of what was originally a life sentence for repairing trucks that were used to transport marijuana.
As those examples reflect, Trump s acts of clemency mixed favors to cronies with relief for genuinely deserving federal prisoners hit with grossly disproportionate penalties. The controversy over his choices highlights longstanding problems with a clemency system that is a woefully inadequate remedy for the injustices routinely inflicted by rigid and draconian federal sentences.
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When Donald Trump pardoned his former adviser Steve Bannon last week, the outgoing president blocked Bannon’s prosecution for bilking donors to an organization that claimed to be raising money for a wall along the border with Mexico.
When Trump granted a commutation to Craig Cesal, by contrast, he freed a man who had already served 17 years of what was originally a life sentence for repairing trucks that were used to transport marijuana.
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As those examples reflect, Trump’s acts of clemency mixed favors to cronies with relief for genuinely deserving federal prisoners hit with grossly disproportionate penalties. The controversy over his choices highlights longstanding problems with a clemency system that is a woefully inadequate remedy for the injustices routinely inflicted by rigid and draconian federal sentences.