"Patrick’s cousin gets presidential clemency; Obama calls life term for drugs too harsh | Governor says he had no role in the case" by Matt Viser and Tracy Jan | Globe Staff, December 20, 2013
WASHINGTON — President Obama granted a commutation Thursday to the first cousin of Governor Deval Patrick, allowing the release of a man who in 1994 was given a life sentence on charges of dealing crack cocaine.
Patrick said that he does not recall ever meeting his first cousin Reynolds Allen Wintersmith Jr., 39, of Rockford, Ill., and that he had no involvement in his application for clemency, which has been a cause of national advocates for years and has been featured in the national media....
Patrick, who declined requests for an interview, has a close relationship with Obama, dining with him at the White House and on Martha’s Vineyard. Patrick’s spokeswoman, Jesse Mermell, said that the White House did not alert the governor about the commutation, and that Patrick learned of it only through the news media.
A White House spokesman would not say whether Obama knew that Wintersmith was related to Patrick when he signed off on the commutation.
Wintersmith was one of eight convicts who received presidential commutations Thursday. He is expected to be released by April. Obama also granted 13 pardons.
I wonder who else got pardons.
Obama said he was granting the commutations because the sentences were unduly harsh. The president in 2010 signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which narrowed the disparity between penalties for crack cocaine and powder cocaine offenses.
“If they had been sentenced under the current law, many of them would have already served their time and paid their debt to society,” Obama said in a statement. “Instead, because of a disparity in the law that is now recognized as unjust, they remain in prison, separated from their families and their communities, at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars each year.”
Says the man indefinitely detaining innocent people.
Wintersmith’s case has been featured in the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times. The American Civil Liberties Union has taken up his cause.
Nice to have friends, isn't it?
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Wintersmith was convicted during the crack epidemic, at a time when federal sentencing guidelines included mandatory sentences. Because he was a gang leader pushing large amounts of cocaine and crack to the streets, the judge said he had no choice but to sentence him to life in prison....
The laws, though, have changed, particularly as prisons have grown more crowded.
Advocates pushing for Wintersmith’s release emphasized that he was raised in a home where most of his family was using or dealing drugs. Both of his parents were drug addicts, and he said he found his mother dead from a heroin overdose when he was 11....
I guess certain crimes can be excused.
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Also see: Sunday Globe Specials: Please Pardon Obama
It's past time for that.
NEXT DAY UPDATE: Deval Patrick’s cousin’s sentence commuted: Mercy was warranted
