During the final months of his administration, President Barack Obama is commuting the sentences in federal drug -related cases across the United States. Michael Pope has this look at how the president’s actions here in Virginia might be a turning point in the war on drugs.
One drug trafficker from Newport News was given 218 years in prison. Crack dealers in Arlington and Dale City were given life in prison. These are some examples of the seven cases where the president is reducing their sentences on his way out the White House door. Virginia legal expert Rich Kelsey says judges often have their hands tied by mandatory minimum sentences.
“A lot of times these judges are sitting in front of them with somebody who has a prior criminal background, 30 plus charges, violence in their record and they simply apply the sentencing guidelines and you end up with somebody who gets 218 years in prison."
Quentin Kidd at Christopher Newport University says Obama’s action is recognition that the War on Drugs was unfair to many people.
“Some of this is driven by the cost of incarceration. But I think a lot of it is driven by a recognition that the way that we were fighting the War on Drugs simply wasn’t succeeding, and it was doing a lot of human damage at the same time."
Obama’s actions put an end to drug dealing cases spanning from 1997 to 2008, when he was first elected. That’s an era when the idea of super predators fell out of fashion and the concept of mandatory minimum sentences came under increased scrutiny.
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