Free Republic

The latest round brings to 774 the number of sentences Obama has commuted, including 590 this year. The White House says it’s more than the previous 11 presidents put together. Almost all of those receiving commutations were convicted of drug-related offenses. Most are considered nonviolent offenders, although some were convicted of firearms charges in connection with drug crimes. Many of the recipients had been serving life sentences.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday cut short the sentences of 214 federal inmates, including 67 life sentences, in what the White House called the largest batch of commutations on a single day in more than a century. ADVERTISEMENT Almost all the prisoners were serving time for nonviolent drug crimes, reflecting Obama's long-stated view that the U.S. needs to remedy the consequences of decades of sentencing requirements that put tens of thousands of Americans behind bars for far too long. Obama has pushed for a broader fix to criminal justice laws and has used the aggressive pace of his commutations in...

Attorney General Eric Holder is calling for major changes to the nation’s criminal justice system that would scale back the use of harsh prison sentences for certain drug-related crimes, divert people convicted of low-level offenses to drug treatment and community service programs and expand a prison program to allow for release of some elderly, non-violent offenders. In remarks prepared for delivery Monday to the American Bar Association in San Francisco, Holder said he is mandating a change to Justice Department policy so that low-level, non-violent drug offenders with no ties to large-scale organizations, gangs or cartels won’t be charged with...

PASCAGOULA -- Chemicals from a methamphetamine dump exploded in the face of a 9-year-old boy, leaving him virtually blind in both eyes. "I just never dreamed this could happen," Mona Leissa Polk said as she cradled her son, Isaiah. "He's been so strong through this. He hasn't cried or even complained once. He's my hero." Isaiah, along with three friends, 6-year-old Kaimen Lowery, 8-year-old Noel Jones and 9-year-old Wendell Williams were playing in the woods behind the Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer park they live in last week. While exploring and talking about possibly fishing in a nearby pond, the...

1997: Last Time 400 Mark Reached (AP) PHILADELPHIA -- Four murders on the day before Christmas pushed the city's 2006 homicide total to 400 for the first time in nearly a decade. The last time the city reached the 400 mark was 1997, when the year ended with 418 murders. That marked the last of eight years in the 1990s in which there were at least 400 killings, including a record 500 in 1990, according to police statistics. The spate of overnight violence started when pizza delivery man Michael Orlando, 43, was shot while trying to make a delivery...