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For Immediate Release
November, 13 2013, 10:20am EDT
Contact:
Alexandra Ringe, 212-549-2666, media@aclu.org
More Than 3,200 Serving Life Without Parole for Nonviolent Offenses, Finds ACLU
NEW YORK
In the first-ever study of people serving life without parole for nonviolent offenses in the United States, the ACLU found that at least 3,278 prisoners fit this category in federal and state prisons combined.
"A Living Death: Life Without Parole for Nonviolent Offenses" features key statistics about these prisoners, an analysis of the laws that produced their sentences, and case studies of 110 men and women serving these sentences. Of the 3,278 prisoners, 79% were convicted of nonviolent, drug-related crimes such as possession or distribution; 20% of nonviolent property crimes like theft.
"The punishments these people received are grotesquely out of proportion to the crimes they committed," said Jennifer Turner, ACLU Human Rights Researcher and author of the report. "In a humane society, we can hold people accountable for drug and property crimes without throwing away the key."
The ACLU estimates that, of the 3,278 serving life without parole for nonviolent offenses, 65% are Black, 18% are white, and 16% percent are Latino, evidence of extreme racial disparities. Of the 3,278, most were sentenced under mandatory sentencing policies, including mandatory minimums and habitual offender laws that required them to be incarcerated until they die.
"The people profiled in our report are an extreme example of the millions of lives ruined by the persistent ratcheting up of our sentencing laws over the last forty years," said Vanita Gupta, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU. "We must change our sentencing practices to make our justice system smart, fair, and humane. It's time to undo the damage wrought by four decades of the War on Drugs and 'tough-on-crime' attitudes."
Douglas Ray Dunkins Jr., who has served 22 years so far, told the ACLU, "It's devastating, horrible, not being around to see [my children] graduate and go to school." Dicky Joe Jackson, who has served 17 years, said, "I would rather have had a death sentence than a life sentence."
The federal courts account for 63% of the 3,278 life-without-parole sentences for nonviolent offenses. The remaining prisoners are in Louisiana (429 prisoners), Florida (270), Alabama (244), Mississippi (93), South Carolina (88), Oklahoma (49), Georgia (20), Illinois (10), and Missouri (1). The ACLU estimates that federal and state taxpayers spend $1.8 billion keeping these people in prison for life instead of more appropriate terms.
In addition to interviews, correspondence, and a survey of hundreds of prisoners serving life without parole for nonviolent offenses, the ACLU based "A Living Death" on court records, a prisoner survey, and data from the United States Sentencing Commission, Federal Bureau of Prisons, and state Departments of Corrections obtained through Freedom of Information Act and open records requests.
"A Living Death" features comments from the prisoners' family members, and in multiple instances, prisoners' sentencing judges express frustration and outrage at the severity of the punishment the law required. Judge Milton I. Shadur told Rudy Martinez as he sentenced Martinez to life without parole: "[F]airness has departed from the system."
The report includes recommendations to federal and state governments for changes in sentencing and clemency. The proposed policy reforms would help bring balance back to sentencing--crucial steps to reduce our nation's dependence on incarceration.
"We must change the laws that have led to such unconscionable sentences," said Turner. "For those now serving life without parole for nonviolent offenses, President Obama and state governors must step in and reduce their sentences. To do nothing is a failure of justice."
The ACLU has placed ads online and in print to raise public awareness of the prisoners serving life-without-parole for nonviolent offenses and the larger problem of mass incarceration. Featuring photographs of six prisoners profiled in "A Living Death," the ads will appear multiple times in print and online in such national outlets as Jet, the Nation, the New York Times, USA Today, and the Washington Post.
The report is available here: www.aclu.org/fairandsmart
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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Machine Gun-Toting Israeli Settlers Detain Ro Khanna During Trip to Occupied West Bank
"These hoodlums come in with machine guns—M4, an American-made machine gun—and they detain us. They block off the road."
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Rep. Ro Khanna this week was detained by a group of Israeli settlers whom he described as "hoodlums... with machine guns" while making a visit to a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank.
In an interview with Reuters published on Saturday, Khanna (D-Calif.) said he and his tour group were surrounded by armed settlers as they were traveling through the West Bank on Wednesday.
"We were at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed, they had destroyed the school, they had destroyed that village, and we were just looking at it," said Khanna. "And these hoodlums come in with machine guns—M4, an American-made machine gun—and they detain us. They block off the road."
The California Democrat said that the settlers called in members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to help them deal with him and his group.
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David McCraw, the top attorney representing the Times' newsroom, denounced the subpoenas as an attack on the freedom of the press.
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It is highly uncommon for government investigators to subpoena journalists when they are probing national security leaks, as such actions are generally seen as having a chilling effect on reporters’ ability to gather information.
Rick Stengel, former under secretary of state for President Barack Obama, said that the Times' reporting on the Qatari jet, whose security upgrades are being financed with US tax dollars, is completely within the scope of constitutional protections for press freedom.
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Fox News chief national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin also denounced the Trump administration for trying to drag reporters into a grand jury investigation.
"This action by the US government to subpoena reporters for reporting legitimate news on security concerns about Air Force One should alarm every American," Griffin wrote.
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This is the second time in recent weeks that the Trump administration has tried to subpoena reporters to compel their testimony in grand jury investigations.
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The Secretary of State's office subsequently said that Platner's name will no longer appear on the ballot, and that his party has until July 27 to replace him with a qualified candidate.
Also on Friday, Drop Site News obtained a draft letter from the 15,000-strong volunteer network that was instrumental to Platner's erstwhile success, presenting the Maine Democratic Party and prospective candidates with policy platform demands including “healthcare as a right, housing affordability, an economy that works for regular people and not billionaires, strengthening workers and unions, end forever wars, oppose complicity in atrocities, an end to mass deportation enforcement, energy and climate accountability, and human rights for all.”
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As Drop Site noted:
The Maine Democratic Party’s 100-person state committee voted to approve a process by which 600 delegates, 500 county committee elected delegates, and the 100 state committee members themselves will select the new nominee from a slate of candidates vying to replace Platner. Troy Jackson, Shenna Bellows, Nirav Shah, Dan Kleban, Jordan Wood, and Vallie Geiger are running for the spot. All the candidates lost their respective Democratic gubernatorial and congressional primaries in June, aside from Geiger, who serves as a state representative for the Rockland area.
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