Bipartisan Push Builds to Relax Sentencing Laws. WASHINGTON — For several years, a handful of lawmakers in Congress have tried to scale back tough sentencing laws that have bloated federal prisons and the cost of running them.
But broad-based political will to change those laws remained elusive. Now, with a push from President Obama, and perhaps even more significantly a nod from Speaker John A. Boehner, Congress seems poised to revise four decades of federal policy that greatly expanded the number of Americans — to roughly 750 per 100,000 — who are incarcerated, by far the highest of any Western nation. Conservative Support Aids Bid in Nebraska to Ban Death Penalty. LINCOLN, Neb. — The Nebraska Legislature will decide in the next several weeks whether to do what no other conservative state has done in more than 40 years: Abolish the death penalty.
In the latest sign that vigorous support for capital punishment can no longer be taken for granted among Republicans, a coalition of Republican, Democratic and independent lawmakers has backed a bill that would replace capital punishment with life imprisonment. Its members cite reasons that range from fiscal and practical to ideological. After a Guilty Plea, a Prison Term and a Movie, a Sex Abuse Case Returns. Photo Editorial Observer By JESSE WEGMAN Early in “Capturing the Friedmans,” the 2003 documentary that tells the harrowing story of a father and son charged in 1987 with the brutal sexual abuse of children on Long Island, one of the detectives on the case recalls her hesitation in the face of intense pressure from parents to prosecute quickly.
“Just charging somebody with this kind of a crime is enough to ruin their lives,” she said. “So you want to make sure that you have enough evidence, and that you’re convinced that you’re making a good charge.” On Tuesday, the son, Jesse Friedman, who was released in 2001 after serving 13 years in prison, will be back in court, arguing once again for the disclosure of that evidence, which he says will help to prove his innocence. From the beginning, the case was deeply flawed.
It did not matter. Both Friedmans pleaded guilty. The problem was that most of the charges weren’t true. But Mr. In the years since his release, Mr. Mr. Editorial Observer. A Woman Got Six Extra Years in Prison Because She Was Pregnant. Being pregnant can apparently make you that much more criminal.
Photo via Flickr user J.K. Califf Lacey Weld of Dandridge, Tennessee, was 26 years old and in the final weeks of pregnancy when a camera attached to an undercover police officer captured her 40-minute visit to a methamphetamine manufacturing plant. In July, despite her cooperation in the case and testimony against co-defendants, Weld (who pleaded guilty) was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison and five years of supervised release for her involvement in meth manufacturing. The federal judge in the case, Thomas Varlan, determined that “enhanced sentencing” guidelines regarding harm to a child justified around six years of her punishment because she carried a fetus when the crime was committed. Now a coalition of reproductive-rights organizations is calling on outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder to publicly condemn sentencing practices that impose harsher punishments for women on the basis of pregnancy alone.
Pennsylvania passes a "Gag Mumia" law to silence prisoner's voices. The "Revictimization Relief Act" allows suits against offenders whose "conduct...perpetuates the continuing effect of the crime on the victim," but the fact that it was aimed at silencing jailed activist Mumia Abu-Jamal was never made a secret -- the governor signed it into law saying that it "was inspired by the excesses and pious hypocrisy of one particular killer.
" Prison Radio's running an Indiegogo campaign to fight the law and to keep on airing recordings of American prisoners -- America having the highest incarceration rate of any nation on Earth. The campaign's after $45K, and there's a $45K matching grant if they make it. So ostensibly, this “Revictimization Relief Act” is a direct attack on Mumia. But it is also an attack on other political prisoners and prisoners of war, potentially allowing the state to prohibit the publication or dissemination of their writings, words, and ideas. Parole When Innocence Is Claimed - Room for Debate.