a marmoset's secret life....

The Case for Pardons

jeffmiller:

Tucker Carlson makes the case for pardons.  Here’s part of it:

Who should get pardoned? Contrary to myth, there aren’t a lot of innocent people on death row. But there are a quite a few guilty people who ought to be forgiven. Last week, for example, Bush pardoned a 50-year-old Missouri farmer named Leslie Owen Collier. In 1995, Collier accidentally poisoned three bald eagles. An indisputably solid citizen, Collier was horrified by the birds’ death. Some self-aggrandizing prosecutor went after him anyway, and he wound up a felon. The conviction overshadowed Collier’s life. Bush fixed it in an instant.

There are thousands of Leslie Colliers out there. The trick is bringing them to the attention of the White House. That’s not easy. Typically, you’ve got to know someone who knows someone.

Consider the case of imprisoned rapper John Forte, whose sentence Bush recently commuted. In 2000, Forte, who had produced albums for the Fugees and once toured with Wyclef Jean, was busted at Newark Airport carrying 31 pounds of cocaine. He wound up with 14-year prison term. He’d likely still be there, but for the fact he’d gone to Exeter with Carly Simon’s son, Ben, and had visited the Simon family spread on Martha’s Vineyard .

A few years ago, Ben’s mom collaborated on a country song with Sen. Orrin Hatch and told him about Forte’s case. Hatch called the White House. Forte was sprung.

So because your boarding school friend’s mom finds herself in a recording studio with a U.S. senator, you get out of jail early. Whatever else it is, that’s not an efficient way to dispense justice. The incoming president ought to set up a well-staffed office of investigators at the Justice Department whose only task is to find felons worthy of pardon.

I thought you might be interested in this case:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4428270.ece

You might not be, but your post made me think of him.

Very little attention had been brought to him, relatively speaking, but the bbc made a radio play based on his story, which I guess one could suggest was biased- in that it showed him as being an unstable man who’s life got out of control… rather than someone rightfully brought to justice- obviously I don’t know which is the truth…