Posted on 11/05/2013 8:48:16 AM PST by Kaslin
Former New York police Commissioner Bernie Kerik handed "Today" show host Matt Lauer a nickel. Kerik knows a few things about money and crime. After President George W. Bush nominated him to be homeland security chief, the 9/11 hero lied to federal investigators. Instead of joining the Bush Cabinet, Kerik pleaded guilty to two counts of tax fraud and six counts of making false statements. He was sentenced to four years in prison.
Free after three years in a minimum-security facility, Kerik went on "Today" to discuss not the injustice of his conviction but the injustice of federal mandatory minimum sentences that can put first-time nonviolent offenders away for decades, even life.
"I had no idea that for 5 grams of cocaine, which is what that nickel weighs, 5 grams, you could be sentenced to 10 years in prison," quoth Kerik.
Clearly, Kerik is not a details guy. He got everything in that example wrong except the weight of a nickel. When Kerik pleaded guilty, first-time nonviolent offenders found guilty of possessing 5 grams of crack cocaine in federal court faced a mandatory five years. The same mandatory minimum applied for 100 grams of powdered cocaine. In 2010, Congress changed the law so that 28 grams of crack invite a five-year mandatory minimum. But even if wrong on the details, he's right on the big picture.
As a cop and then commissioner, Kerik said, he was involved in putting some "really bad people" -- violent bad guys -- away for decades, even life, for breaking state law. Still, he was stunned to find himself in federal prison, "housed with men that were doing those same sentences that were there for first-time nonviolent drug offenses." He continued: "I didn't know that could happen. I didn't know that you could be sentenced to 25 years to life for a first-time nonviolent drug conviction."
Eric Sterling of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation observed that it's not unusual for white-collar criminals to emerge from federal prison enraged at not their own situation but the warehousing of nonviolent drug offenders. "It is the massive scale of this that is so moving to people."
In a speech to the American Bar Association in August, Attorney General Eric Holder said, "Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long and for no truly good law enforcement reason." Yet the Obama administration has failed to lead the way in reforming federal sentencing.
When "Meet the Press" host David Gregory asked Obama adviser David Axelrod about Kerik's bold statement, Axelrod credited Sen. Rand Paul and other Republicans before adding Obama's name. When Axelrod wants to share the credit, that's not a good sign.
"Legislators should heed his message because there's nothing in it for Kerik," Julie Stewart of Families Against Mandatory Minimums argued. "He is simply shining a spotlight on a dark hole that policymakers never look into."
Until, that is, they fall from grace. And then they see too much.
The WOD has been used as the excuse to steal all sorts of freedoms from the people, and not just your physical freedom from jail.
This guy was railroaded just to damage Giuliani’s bid at POTUS in my opinion. Compare him to Pelosi, Rangel, Gore and all these other libs who have made millions through illegal means, and this guy goes away for 4 years because of a one time tax issue? Oh! And he hired a maid who was an illegal!! *Gasp*! Total double standard.
Dude looking for his new gravy train.
Brain dead dopers and their enablers are a great target. They are rich and liberal and stupid.
Oh yeah and he was sent away for that 4 years despite the fact that he’s a vet and the highest decorated cop in NYPD history. All that was thrown out the window.
And almost certainly putting away people for minor violations too.
Mandatory minimums were a response to the situation where some judges would give probation while others would give long sentences. If the judge could look into the convict's soul at sentencing time and decide whether he could be reformed or if it was best to separate him from society, then maybe the power for arbitrary sentencing could be returned to the judges. The problem was that some judges regularly gave long sentences while others gave short ones. I don't think anyone can argue that was just.
yes he was. This is what the left does to destroy their enemies..
What?! Ya mean there be a white Obama?
Not to mention wealth. There are some departments in this country who fund their narcotics “division”’s soley by seizures. I think we know what happens when that division wants some new toys.
What a disgrace and a bit of a buffoon
Police departments LOVE the WOD. Hell, they don’t even have to find any drugs, they can just say in MIGHT be drug related and take your car, you bank account and your house.
just think PROHIBITION
and then admit, been there, done that, doesn’t work
prohibition - 1920 to 1933
the modern “war on drugs”
officially 1971 (Nixon) to...........................??
saner heads prevailed sooner in 1933 than we have seen since 1971
“What a disgrace and a bit of a buffoon”
No he isn’t, and he’s mostly right on this. Too many of our prisons are overcrowded with minor drug offenders with too long sentences. Go after the dealers rather than the users, unless they are caught committing a crime while drugged up such as robbery, burglary, attempted murder, murder, etc. Otherwise, stick them in a halfway house for a while with a lot of drug therapy.
Disagree but each his own
“Disagree but each his own”
Okay, that’s fair. We agree to disagree, lol. Best to you.
Something sounds really odd about this.
I’ll guess that 5 grams of crack is how much a standard user would be holding.
If this law was actually being enforced, there would be tens of thousands of crack users in the federal system.
In fact, there are only 211,000 prisoners total in the whole system.
What am I not seeing here?
What you write is true; sadly, many here don’t want to bother themselves and read about it. It’ll happen to some of them eventually.
The problem is that users...like meth users....tend to start doing a lot of stupid things to make the habit work. They rob grandma of $40, and steal the gas bar-b-q of the next door neighbor. After a while, the petty-user of drugs....is more of society problem than we’d all like to admit.
About two miles down the road from my dad’s place where I grew up...there’s three young guys...ages eighteen to twenty-four. All are huffers....huffing gas products, and doing various other drugs. They have a reputation now....unemployed....of stealing nickel and dime items from the neighbors. They get by off a couple hundred bucks a month....robbing folks of lawn mowers, a saw, a drill, etc. They pawn the item quickly and there’s never any evidence. From a citizen standpoint, they need a couple of years in prison to clean up their habit....that’s the only way that something might happen to fix the problem.
I totally agree with you that punks need to be punished, especially if they are stealing to support their drug habit. Like I said in my comment, if crimes are committed they need to be thrown in the clink. However, for your average drug addict that gets caught with the drugs, I would prefer they be put in a halfway house or institutionalized in a drug treatment program for a set amount of time, a year or longer, to break their habit and get clean. If that doesn’t work, then again, throw them in the clink.
But putting youthful drug users into jail with a bunch of hardened criminals doesn’t seem like a really good idea to me. Not going to solve any problems and what are you going to do, jail a drug user for life? Would you put an alcoholic in jail forever because they have an alcohol problem? Drug users and alcoholics both have the same problem, a chronic habit that needs to be treated. I believe there should be facilities other than a prison, where these people should be institutionalized solely to treat and hopefully break their drug habit, and they don’t get out until it’s fixed, and if they go back to their old ways when released, they have the threat that next time they will end up in prison. Just my opinion.
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