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My father, Antonio Bascaró, has been in prison for over 34 years, he had no earlier criminal record, serving time for a nonviolent first-time marijuana-only offense… all for helping supply a product that’s legal in a growing number of states. He’s the longest-serving marijuana prisoner in the history of the USA. Today, he’s 80 years old. I lost him to the legal system when I was 12 years old. I hardly remember him outside of that environment. My children barely know him. This gentle grandfather of eight spends his days in a wheelchair, mostly by himself, reading newspapers and listening to the news in his cell at a federal prison south of Miami. He calls me two to three times a week to see how I’m doing and staying in touch. I check on his health, we talk about plans for when he gets out, hoping that on the next Christmas, birthday, or summer we can be together. My father paid with his life (and ours) for that one marijuana offense. I think that the time he’s already been in prison is more than enough punishment. He isn’t a threat to society; he has a large family waiting for him and ready to help him re-enter it. That’s why I’m asking President Obama to grant him clemency, please.
Please, sign my petition asking President Obama to grant my father Antonio Bascaró clemency.
9 December 2014
Aicha Bascaró
Lawrenceville GA
Sign Aicha’s Petition
Change.org
https://www.change.org/p/eric-h-holder-please-grant-clemency-to-my-father-antonio-bascaro?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=211546&alert_id=vrZNeWwTGC_l9qE8xsW%2Bb8xvSpMR13IbfOjd2SM%2FaxZ8%2BhIVLWN0GuE7u%2FOK7xySrAoaZ9vukR2
Editor:
The USA is the “Prison House of all the Nations”… not only do we have the festering enormity of the Gitmo Gulag on our conscience as a nation, we have more prisoners, both in absolute and per capita terms, than any other nation on earth. Some states in the USA are worse than others are… the worst, hands-down, is Texas… that’s because the Anglos have never felt comfortable in their possession of the territory since the Texas Anglo Coup of 1836. Remember WHY the Anglos did it… the Mexicans insisted that they free their slaves! It wasn’t a war FOR liberty… it was a war RESTRICTING liberty. It’s no surprise that Texas is also the leader in capital punishment. Following not far behind are the southeastern states of the Old Confederacy. There, the law does its best to victimise black folks… all one has to do is to look at the rates of white and black imprisonment and execution in those states.
The Republicans smile at imprisoning black and Latino men as it removes them from the voting rolls. Therefore, I make the following suggestion. We should legalise marijuana… grant total and unconditional pardons to those whose only offences were marijuana busts. We should restore their voting rights… we should wipe their slates clean. Of course, optimally, we’d couple that with throwing rightwing filth like Rick Perry in the slam for misusing drug laws to disenfranchise coloured men… but that isn’t going to happen. I predict that lawlessness wouldn’t break out. All that would happen is that crooked pols, judges, and cops would forego their dirty money and drug dealers would lose their lucrative situations. Wanna know who the crooked pols, judges, and coppers are? Look at those who defend the “War on Drugs” most strenuously… those are your culprits. It’s just like the loudest and most strident opponents of open homosexuals… why, they’re often closeted gays themselves!
Set the drug prisoners free and legalise marijuana. Drug addiction is a medical problem… not a criminal justice problem. In any case, marijuana use doesn’t lead to hard drug use. Keep it focused. Look at the BILLIONS we’d save on prisons… note well that the amoral moneygrubbing Republican rightwing filth DOESN’T want to save that money. I wonder why… so should you…
BMD
Voices from Russia 
Race in America: Blacks More Likely to Be Wrongfully Convicted Than Whites
Tags: African-American, bias, Crime and Justice, discrimination, political commentary, politics, prisoners, racial discrimination, racialism, social injustice, Social justice, United States, USA
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A study released on Tuesday indicates that racial bias in the USA makes African-Americans much more likely to be wrongfully convicted of drug crimes, sexual assault, and murder than white defendants are. The National Registry of Exonerations (NRE) examined cases spanning from 1989 to October 2016, and out of 1,900 people convicted and later exonerated of crimes, black Americans made up 47 percent, a figure over three times their share of the population in the USA. African-Americans are also seven times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder than whites, according to the study and are 12 times more likely to be convicted of drug crimes than white Americans. The report noted further discrepancies in murder convictions:
Samuel Gross, University of Michigan Law School professor and senior editor for the group tracking exonerations, said:
NRE released a separate study noting that 2016 was a record year for exonerations in the USA, with the most since 1989. There were 166 exonerations, an uptick from 2015’s 160 cases. Harris County in Texas, which includes Houston, showed chiefly drug convictions and was the source for most of the exonerations in the state. There were many instances of people pleading guilty to drug possession, only for crime reports to reveal months and years later that there were no controlled substances in the seized material. There were 52 exonerations for murder across the country, along with 73 exonerations of drug possession and other non-violent crimes. Illinois had the most exonerations in 2016 after Texas, with 16. There were 14 exonerations in New York and 9 in California. The “San Antonio Four”, four Latino women convicted of child sex crimes in the 1990s were the highest-profile exoneration of last year. In the majority opinion, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge David Newell wrote:
8 March 2017
Sputnik International
https://sputniknews.com/us/201703081051360908-blacks-more-like-convicted-crime/