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San Francisco Gate: Offering Clemency to Low-Level Drug Offenders Is Long Overdue
By San Francisco Gate Editorial Board When Barack Obama ran for the White House in 2008, federal inmates and their families believed that if he won, miracles would follow. They were convinced that the former law professor and critic of federal mandatory minimum sentences would be liberal with his unfettered constitutional power to free low-level…
American Muslims Claim FBI Placed Them on No-Fly List for Refusing to Be Informants
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com No one has accused Naveed Shinwari of breaking the law. But that hasn’t stopped federal authorities from placing him on the no-fly list, which has prevented Shinwari from seeing his wife for the past 26 months, the Guardian reports. Shinwari said he believes he can’t fly because he’s refused to become an…
Al Jazeera: Obama Should Commute Stiff Sentences of Nonviolent Drug Offenders
By Daniel Denzir Al Jazeera Last month Don McIntosh, a journalist and friend of mine in Portland, Ore., posted on Facebook that his half brother Daniel McIntosh had just been sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for selling 954 kilograms of marijuana and money laundering as part of a 16-member pot-selling ring. “Our…
Wisconsin DOJ Let 43 Child Porn Cases Languish While Predators Were Free
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The Wisconsin Department of Justice let at least 43 tips about suspected child pornography languish for four months or longer, compromising the investigations and keeping children in harm’s way, an internal investigation determined. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the number could be a lot higher, revealing a major lapse in judgment…
More than Third of Released Prisoners Arrested Within 6 Months of Release
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com If prison is designed to prevent repeat offenses, it’s failing miserably. Business Insider reports that more than a third of state prisoners were arrested within six months of being released, and that number jumped to 56.7% within the first year, 67.8% within three years and 76.6 % within five years. Those numbers…
FBI’s Reaches 80-Year Anniversary of Botched Attempt to Arrest John Dillinger, His Gang in Wisconsin
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com It was a 80-year-old lesson the FBI will never forget. Tuesday was the 80-year anniversary of the bureau’s bungled attempt to arrest gangster John Dillinger and his gang at Little Bohemia Lodge in northern Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Agents acting on a tip tried to raid the lodge but were…
Justice Department Readies for Unprecedented Campaign to Grant Clemency to Nonviolent Offenders
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The Obama administration is anticipating thousands of clemency requests from federal inmates imprisoned for drug offenses. The Washington Post reports that the clemencies are part of an unprecedented campaign to create more equity in criminal sentencing by freeing some nonviolent offenders. The initiative will last two years and will involve dozens of…
Border Patrol Saves Life of Illegal Immigrant Bitten By Snake in Texas
video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com U.S. Border Patrol agents are being credited with saving a man’s life after he illegally entered the U.S. from Honduras. KSAT.com reports that agents rescued the man in Texas after he called 911 and told the operator he was bitten by a snake. Agents responded with a…