Owner Of Pot Dispensaries Gets 21 Years In Prison

by Joe Mozingo.    Why you should know about JURY NULLIFICATION. Noah Kleinman faced his moment of reckoning: Should he tell a federal judge his marijuana dispensaries were just a front to distribute bulk marijuana and make hundreds of thousands of dollars? Or stick to his claim of innocence? Kleinman, a 39-year-old salesman from Studio   ... MORE

Lee Stranahan: Authority’s Threat To Citizen Journalism

The government's persecution of James O'Keefe.        It’s a scenario that smacks of a movie set in a foreign country. A journalist is arrested and put into shackles. Not just handcuffs, mind you; shackles. He’s taunted by the police and thrown in jail on trumped-up charges. The politically connected prosecutors don’t just work to put him    ... MORE

Woman Jailed for Saying 'Fuck the Police' Wins Settlement

Thick badge, thin skin.   A Georgia woman jailed for criticizing police officers as she rode by on a bicycle has been awarded a $100,000 settlement in a civil suit against the local police department.  Cobb County resident Amy Barnes was bicycling to the store in April 2012 when she passed police officers questioning a suspect. She treated    ... MORE

More Face Life Sentences For Crimes They Didn’t Commit

by Rob Hustle. The fallacy of mass incarceration. We recently reported on the case of Brandon Duncan, a California-based rapper facing a life sentence for writing songs about gang violence. Not to be outdone, in Illinois, Lake County State’s Attorney Mike Nerheim, Lake County Sheriff Mark C. Curran and other officials recently announced that:     ... MORE

Minnesota Mom Faces 2 Years In Prison For Saving Her Son

by Matt Agorist.  A mother of two is facing jail time for seeking out life saving cannabis oil to treat her son’s horrifying seizures. This nightmare for the Brown family started 3 years ago, when their son Trey, then 12, was hit in the head with a baseball causing a traumatic brain injury. The brain injury has caused severe tremors and episodes in which  ... MORE

California To Release All Non Violent Drug War Prisoners

by Kelsie Paige. Voters may room in prison for the violent. California just voted to release all their drug prisoners and will no longer allow felony convictions for drugs! Wow and Wow! Peace, Love and NeverGetBusted. California approved a major shift against mass incarceration on Tuesday in a vote that could lead to the    ... MORE

Woman Jailed 47 Days For Spahettios-Encrusted Spoon

Another drug warrior just "serving the public."      An innocent woman had several months of her life destroyed when she was arrested and charged with a felony because of a spaghetti-encrusted spoon found in her possession. Ashley Gabrielle Huff, 23, had no criminal history and insisted that “there’s no way in hell” that there could have     ... MORE

Does Obama Believe He Should Have Gone To Prison?

from Students for Liberty.   As President Obama has admitted since long before entering politics, he’s done his fair share of illegal drugs. In his 1995 book, Dreams From My Father, he wrote that he’d used marijuana and “maybe a little blow[1].” Despite this, he continues to oversee a federal war against others who’ve done the same. What I have in  ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: 40,000 Prisoners Of Pot Prohibition

Some will die in prison.     Now that growing and selling marijuana are legitimate businesses in Colorado and Washington, the injustice of sending people to prison for engaging in those activities is starker than ever before. Last week at Reason.com, for example, Aaron Malin highlighted the case of Jeff Mizanskey, a Missouri man who   ... MORE

Utilize Jury Nullification To Make America Free Again

by Ed Forchion.   By design of the founders of America, U.S. citizens are the final arbiters of our nation’s laws via our jury system. I don’t think the founding fathers could have envisioned “America the free” becoming “America the prison country.” I was jailed for saying that in 2002 – we have political prisoners in America too. The incarceration rate in     ... MORE

Jeff Mizanskey Is Serving Life in Prison for Marijuana

by Aaron Malin.    Rapists and murderers come and go, but he's there for the duration. As I prepared to leave home for my interview with Jeff Mizanskey I looked up the address of the prison where he is held. In disbelief, I typed the characters into the GPS on my phone: 8200 No More Victims Road. Jeff Mizanskey is serving a life sentence without   ... MORE 

Jacob Sullum: Why Prosecutors Love Mandatory Minimums

Prosecutorial power hinders justice process.   In 1996, when he was the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Eric Holder urged the D.C. Council to reinstate mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, which it had abolished in 1994. Two decades later, as an attorney general who has repeatedly criticized "draconian"       ... MORE

All Of Us Are Criminals In The Eyes Of The Police State

by John W. Whitehead.       Why are we seeing such an uptick in Americans being arrested for such absurd “violations” as letting their kids play at a park unsupervised, collecting rainwater and snow runoff on their own property, growing vegetables in their yard, and holding Bible studies in their living room? Consider what happened to Nicole Gainey,    ... MORE

Time To Reform Draconian Marijuana Laws

by Jerome McCollom.      It's a war on us. The war on marijuana has been an attack on our constitutional rights and civil liberties for decades, since the government started lying to us about it. No enemy could hope to violate our rights as much as it has done. For example, in Temecula, Calif., an undercover officer at a high school befriended an     ...  MORE

Walter E Williams: Please Stop Helping Us

Misplaced loyalty.     While reading the first chapter of Jason Riley’s new book, “Please Stop Helping Us,” I thought about Will Rogers’ Prohibition-era observation that “Oklahomans vote dry as long as they can stagger to the polls.” Demonstrative of similar dedication, one member of Congress told Vanderbilt University political scientist Carol Swain  ... MORE

Jacob Sullum: Where Pot Might Be Legal Soon

Alaska, Oregon, and the nation's capital.    Last week a marijuana legalization initiative officially qualified for the ballot in Oregon. Voters will also consider legalization measures in Alaska and (probably) the District of Columbia this fall, so by the end of the year three more jurisdictions could join Colorado and Washington in allowing     ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: The Stealing of America

By the Cops, the Courts, the Corporations and Congress.  Call it what you will—taxes, penalties, fees or fines—but the only word that truly describes the constant bilking of the American taxpayer by the government and its corporate partners is theft. We’re operating in a topsy-turvy Sherwood Forest where instead of Robin Hood and   ... MORE

This Is Your Government On Drugs. Any Questions?

by Jonathan Blanks.      If the Obama administration is to be believed, America’s infamous "War on Drugs" is over. In its most recent National Drug Control Strategy, released last week, officials promised a more humane and sympathetic approach to drug users and addiction. Out, the report suggests, are "tough on crime" policies. Rather than   ... MORE

World Health Organization Calls For Drug Decriminalization

UN argues against its own policy.     JAMAICA, Uruguay, Colorado, Washington—more and more places are rebelling against the UN conventions that established the criminalisation of narcotics half a century ago. But the latest organisation to weigh in against the UN’s line is rather surprising. It is a branch of the UN itself. A report just   ... MORE

Nullification: The Secret Weapon Against Harsh Sentencing

by Molly Knefel.      What if justice was the goal? On July 2, Occupy Wall Street protester Cecily McMillan was released from Rikers Island, completing a sentence that her jury never wanted her to serve. On May 19, that jury of twelve convicted McMillan of felony assault against police officer Grantley Bovell. The verdict came after a four-week     ...  MORE