Transcripts For RT Documentary 20240714

Collected some money on i technically was guilty of conspiracy. 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 years came from my years did. Things that i 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 proportional play. It 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 this sent 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 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 bumpers 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. 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 what 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. And. My reaction was are 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. 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 you will be put away and put away for good 3 strikes and you are. The primary mission of the drug war as stated by the Nixon Administration is to create a drug free society. Thats what its all about thats why we spend the billions of dollars and incarcerate millions of people. Is to create a drug free society. Weve been atthis now for good marks for 40 years trillions of dollars into it no wind in sight really within 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 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 there are endless 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 prudish and 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 didnt know what it was cut with sometimes it in a freeze people would drink this group of people who drink you 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 of 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 a rainbow is someone committing burglaries you know what the rapes stop. The burglary stock when you arrest someone for dealing drugs dealing drugs doesnt stop in 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 and even. The emphasis over criminal Justice System should be on violent offenses this is where most people are concerned about. They won murderers 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 dont know what the come out just as well to 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 then to thousands but its still alive and well its like pounding funder of anti drug is 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 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. We are these people you know jane felt 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 whose numerous pieces i mean these are all excessively long cases these are. You see colombian drug lords here you see mexico. The mexican drug lords here. Its. Salim clegg. List. Playing. Very well might continue watching on since last. Desists is a sticker 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 ones 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. Their plastic. Away and i knew. That concession could object to funding me. On im your best bet is the end of a footy team but for now the mountains of waste only grow higher. In a world of big part of the new lot and conspiracy its time to wake up to be 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 on the back and shouting past each other its time for Critical Thinking its time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now were watching closely watching the hawks. I was so glad to to start to work my way out of prison. So going the Clinton House was a Halfway House you were half way old but you were still open. So i got the Clinton House. Already already has some experience and or who had a rueful background. 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 roofing and his mother came to me and next we were out by him appear shoes that he needed to do his roof and and he just blossom he just blossomed from there i was so happy to be at work and be there 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 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 minutes when he dismayed as mine of been saying he was going to go in for you know go into business for yourself. 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 then i had to leave our for here business i made about 30 some 1000. 00 or more for a c. E. O. I remember a vest im back into the business im buying tools a mile ladders so im growing the business and i think my 2nd year party did about me some. 3rd year i did about one a solo 1000 some story was surely progress and so now im up to half a 1000000. 00 next in a moment to say i want to now miles. In early 2999. 00 our own 2000 my folly will over the 1000000. 00 more. That wow wow no 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. And bring a person out of prison. And they can have nothing and they can make something of themselves if thats what they want. When you lived a certain way for so long and as far as he. Became a way. Dad needs to be put out here. Because a lot of people dont know how to break it change from the street thing thats saying get a hold of you a single hold you want to die to be all that bull of war. For me is to be that beacon of hope oh no matter where you come from the better what you do and you can come out of that 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 that ive sold drugs out of that door for a number of years inside and out so they have mobility almost became before and then to show people that yes i was that once drove up and down a stream and sold drugs and did all that stuff there 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 a 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 Richards and 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. Washington d c i was there for a on a fundraiser 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 present 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 or 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 to broach to then other comparable nations and have the nets was only see him as a cursory. Seems to me to go i. Got a job. And. A lot of. The year and. As it were there shall. Pass from their parents childrens lives and going to. The conditional and. Loving him. Just because. Im ours. Bred jellicoe 1263706 my 1st encounter of the of the prison systems are pretty young. Lifestyle drugs you know star early the thing with me was i got out february i think it was 2012 within 3 months i got out they mccourt fives fame arrests to sion paid. Child support paid everything i. 0. 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 id be urine test regularly i go to any a well the reality fact is dirty urine is a violation and Probation Officer i had 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 on my i have all this to show you look at all this i have ive done it shes that youve done a lot but you still using drugs and its against the law. To get sentenced to 4 years for dirty your analysis. Its a lot watching your children grow up in issue in waves and say by 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 than this but it 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 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 man of house did the best you can take out the trash drive things you manners i love you so were very proud of you of those wonderful. Friends from 7 to 13 really growing up. And im sorry im not there to go. Had you as much of a life lived. To turn out pretty good and im very very proud. I really am. Now oh i dont know im 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. Youre strong so friends. And now. 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 it is more moments or any time you hate of me you miss me theres a theres a new meaning the same things mom would choose were i love you and i miss you all and i hope to see you soon that i love 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 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 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 there danger i. Want you to. The broader perspective there are so many of. 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 one and asked to be why does it continue. Why are we going to be able to spot. More efficiently on a policy thats been going on since man eating its. One of those so many low level as many seen as major. Thats a very deeply disturbing indictment in the waste so much treasure. And inflict so much more. And cause so much injustices in a society where our credos are about liberty and justice for all. The little. Big claim made hard money fashionable again and that halo effect has spilled over to gold if it werent for big point there would be no current rally gold. As we speak large organized care of it are on the march to the United States. And then 70 and a player coming out for a caring where no schools remain slowing down. This is a virtual invasion of our country were so far bigger than anything we see. That im at the end i thought of him and i meant they are dead are falling ill for nothing up in the form of a feeling you know its going to stop this is. A nice powerful. As you do is you know were going to see a more liberal goes unnoticed is this an issue for player for truth that. The. Ticket. Holder not deliberate. Social media giants are getting ready for the 2020 u. S. Elections with facebook creating special groups to monitor speech and vowing to ban content that tries to put people off voting. Britains home Office Sparks fury for suggesting that trafficked women from nigeria would lead wealthy allies back in africa after working as prostitutes in the u. K. Its a no to the old to joy and the e. U. As barks at a party i mean snub the blocks anthem at the opening of the new European Parliament as Member States are locked in an impasse over who gets brussels top jobs