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  • Opinion:Does Juvenile Killer Rudolfo Sandoval Deserve Life in Prison?

    By Heritage Foundation November 01, 2009

    On November 9th , the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments challenging the constitutionality of juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) sentences. In preparation for oral arguments, JLWOP: Faces & Cases will be an on-going series on The Foundry that will tell real stories about...

  • Opinion:Happy Guantanamo Prison Closing Day! Uh, Nevermind

    By Reason Foundation January 23, 2010

    By Jacob Sullum In case you missed the nonevent, the military prison for suspected terrorists and other assorted "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, did not close yesterday. It may be years before it does, assuming  President Obama ultimately delivers on that promise. In any...

  • News:Drug War Not Just American, UK Fires Prof After Pot Comments

    By Marijuana Policy Project November 01, 2009

    Professor David Nutt, chairman of Great Britain’s advisory council on the misuse of drugs , was forced to resign today after he criticized the British government ’s decision to toughen penalties for marijuana possession. Just a few hours prior to his sacking, Nutt had publicly condemned...

  • Opinion:Wiccan Clergyman Denied Right to Become Prison Chaplain

    By Americans United December 01, 2009

    Americans United Urges Appeals Court to give Prison-Chaplaincy Applicant His Day in court, Has Right to Challenge Government-Imposed Religious Discrimination Religious minorities should have the right to go to court and challenge discriminatory hiring practices imposed by the government ...

  • Opinion:How Can We Truly Eliminate Prison Rape?

    By Reason Foundation June 25, 2009

    By Bill Flanigen The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission released its final report and recommendations this week. The Commission was established by the Prison Rape Elimination Act in 2003 to develop a set of policy proposals to end sexual abuse in prisons . The recommendations, though...

  • News:Gitmo Prisoners Can Be Detained With or Without Trial

    By Reason Foundation July 09, 2009

    On Tuesday the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing about the legal treatment of terrorism suspects. The New York Times account emphasizes that Obama administration officials faced resistance from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and other Republicans on the committee to the idea that...

  • News:Cocaine Trafficker, Who Erased Fingerprints, Gets Life In Prison

    By U.S. Dept. of Justice December 14, 2009

    PHOENIX - William Wallace Keegan, aka Richard Alan King, 62, of Palm Harbor, Florida (and previously of Calif. and New York), was sentenced yesterday to five concurrent life sentences for drug trafficking and 240 months for money laundering related to his drug trafficking activities.

  • Opinion:Obama Supports Ending Crack vs. Cocaine Sentencing Disparity

    By Reason Foundation April 29, 2009

    By Jacob Sullum Today the Justice Department announced that it supports eliminating the sentencing disparity between crack and cocaine powder, under which five grams of smokable cocaine triggers the same sentence as 500 grams of the snortable form. The DOJ's position is not surprising...

  • Opinion:Olympic Hero Michael Phelps Back in Pool After Pot Suspension

    By Reason Foundation May 06, 2009

    Michael Phelps...remember him? He's almost 24 and has seven world records. This guy won more medals than any other Olympian (16) and half of those at a single Olympics, which is a record that hadn't been broken since 1972. He was the Sports Illustrated 's Sportsman of the Year. He was the...

  • Opinion:Obama's Anti-Pot Stance Strikes Out With Youth

    By Reason Foundation May 11, 2009

    When the generation of Americans under the age of 30 gets around to realizing that this handsome young president might not be nearly as cool as they’d hoped, it won’t be hard to affix a date on when the milk began to sour. It was March 26, 2009, when Barack Obama conducted a live town hall...

  • News:Congressman Mark Kirk Proposes 25-Year Prison Term for Marijuana

    By National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws June 15, 2009

    They say that every action spurs an opposite reaction. Well, that certainly seems to be the case in Congress. Just days after Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Barney Frank, along with 13 cosponsors, reintroduced HR 2835, the Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act of 2009 in Congress, Republican...

  • Opinion:U.N.'s Plan to Eradicate Drugs Not Working Out So Well

    By Reason Foundation June 24, 2009

    In 1998 Pino Arlacchi, executive director of the U.N. Drug Control Program, declared : "Global coca leaf and opium poppy acreage totals an area less than half the size of Puerto Rico. There is no reason it cannot be eliminated in little more than a decade." How's that going? Today Antonio...

  • Opinion:DEA Responds to 2009 UN Drug Report, Claims Success

    By Drug Enforcement Administration July 12, 2009

    DEA Acting Administrator Michele Leonart issued the following statement in response to the release of the 2009 United Nations World Drug Report: “Today’s newly-released United Nation’s World Drug Report confirms DEA’s global enforcement strategy successes targeting the major drug...

  • Opinion:PETA Doubts Michael Vick is a Changed Man

    By PETA August 12, 2009

    by Joel Barnett Thanks to Richard Cohen for his Washington Post piece in which he asks if some sports reporters have a special key on their typewriters that types in “he’s served his time.” Michael Vick has indeed served his time, but that entitles him to walk free in our society...

  • News:Officer Indicted for Instigating Fatal Assault of Inmate

    By U.S. Dept. of Justice November 03, 2009

    WASHINGTON – A federal grand jury in Orlando, Fla., has indicted a former Federal Bureau of Prisons corrections officer on charges related to a fatal assault on an inmate in March 2005. Michael Kennedy was charged with one count of conspiring with others to violate the federal civil rights of...

  • News:Florida Man Sentenced to 87 Months for Child Pornography

    By U.S. Dept. of Justice November 13, 2009

    WASHINGTON - Jeffrey Robert Libman, 42, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was sentenced to 87 months in prison today for receiving child pornography , Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Lanny A. Breuer and Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jeffrey H. Sloman...

  • Opinion:Non-Sectarian Group -- No Public Funds for 'Christian' Prison

    By Americans United November 18, 2009

    Americans United for Separation of Church and State today warned Oklahoma corrections officials that a proposed “Christian” prison cannot be supported with public funds. In a Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE...

  • News:WY Cop Gets 15 Years for Kidnapping, Murder Plot While on Duty

    By U.S. Dept. of Justice November 22, 2009

    The Justice Department announced that U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson sentenced former Wyoming Highway Patrol Trooper Franklin Joseph Ryle Jr. to 15 years in prison today for depriving a man of his constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizures by kidnapping the man and for...

  • Opinion:MS Patient Who Grew Marijuana Found Guilty, Faces 5-10 Years

    By Marijuana Policy Project December 18, 2009

    John Wilson , the New Jersey man who had been charged with operating a drug manufacturing facility for the marijuana he grew to treat his multiple sclerosis, was found guilty yesterday of two lesser charges, and now faces five to 10 years in prison . Throughout most of his trial...

  • News:TN Woman Charged for Sex Trafficking “By Force, Fraud & Coercion”

    By U.S. Dept. of Justice December 24, 2009

    Cristina Andres Perfecto of Nashville, Tenn., was sentenced late yesterday in federal court in Memphis to 190 months in prison for sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion, sex trafficking of a juvenile and conspiracy. Perfecto pleaded guilty on Aug . 28, 2007, to two counts of sex...

  • Opinion:Calls for Virginia Governor to Restore Voting Rights to Felons

    By The Rutherford Institute January 05, 2010

    RICHMOND, VA -- Ten Virginia civil rights and faith-based groups, including The Rutherford Institute, have sent a letter to Governor Tim Kaine urging him to issue an executive order that would restore voting rights to most or all of Virginia's 300,000 individuals who are being denied the right...

  • Video:Support Clemency for Georgia Death Row Inmate Troy Davis

    By Amnesty International April 17, 2009

    Troy Davis faces execution for the murder of Police Officer Mark MacPhail in Georgia, despite a strong claim of innocence. 7 out of 9 witnesses have recanted or contradicted their testimony, no murder weapon was found and no physical evidence links Davis to the crime . The Georgia Board of...

  • Opinion:New Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Legal Marijuana

    By Reason Foundation May 07, 2009

    In a recent Zogby poll, 52 percent of voters said they supported marijuana legalization. As far as I know, this is the first time a national survey has found majority support for repealing cannabis prohibition, as opposed to merely decriminalizing possession for personal use. A couple of...

  • News:Employees of Mark Emery, So Called "Prince of Pot," Plead Guilty

    By Drug Enforcement Administration May 08, 2009

    In a U.S. court last week, Michelle Rainey and Gregory Keith Williams both pleaded guilty to Conspiracy to Manufacture Marijuana. Rainey, 38, and Williams, 54, both of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, voluntarily appeared in Seattle to resolve the charges stemming from a 2005 grand jury...

  • News:FBI Releases Annual Crime Report, Crime Rates Down Nationwide

    By Federal Bureau of Investigation June 03, 2009

    According to the FBI's Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report released today, the nation experienced a 2.5 percent decrease in the number of violent crimes and a 1.6 percent decline in the number of property crimes for 2008 compared with data from 2007. The report is based on information that...

  • Opinion:Watch What You Say When Buying "Crack Pipes"

    By Reason Foundation June 07, 2009

    By Jacob Sullum A recent set of drug paraphernalia busts in Louisiana nicely illustrates the contrast between state and federal law in this area. As I noted in my February Reason article on the subject, people typically can be convicted of selling drug paraphernalia under state law only...

  • News:A Brief History of Terrorism Trials in the U.S.

    By U.S. Dept. of Justice June 09, 2009

    I. Terror Prosecutions in the Southern District of New York Since the 1990s, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) has investigated and successfully prosecuted a wide range of international and domestic terrorism cases — including the bombings of the World...

  • News:Chinese Bookstore Owner Imprisoned for Giving Away Books

    By Baptist Press June 11, 2009

    Shi Weihan, the Chinese bookstore owner who has been imprisoned for more than a year, was sentenced June 10 to three years in prison and a fine of nearly $22,000 presumably for "illegal business practices." Shi's friend Ray Sharpe, an Illinois businessman, told Baptist Press the sentence was...

  • News:U.S. Immigrants Imprisoned and Abused Before Getting a Hearing

    By Amnesty International June 17, 2009

    Coming to the United States was a “dream come true” for Deda Makaj. Now 42, Deda fled Albania 20 years ago after enduring five years in a hard labor camp, the culmination of years of persecution he and his family suffered due to their anti-communist beliefs. He escaped to Greece in 1992 and...

  • News:Thousands of Animals Fall Ill, Die from Tainted Pet Food

    By U.S. Dept. of Justice June 18, 2009

    KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Matt J. Whitworth, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that a Nevada company and its owners pleaded guilty in federal court today to distributing a tainted ingredient used to make pet food , which resulted in a nationwide recall of...