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View Full Version : Texas woman granted clemency by Obama last year back in prison



Teh One Who Knocks
06-13-2017, 10:41 AM
FOX News


http://i.imgur.com/gTDtYZA.jpg

A Texas drug dealer is back in prison a year after she was granted clemency by President Obama.

Carol Denise Richardson, 49, was sentenced to 14 months in prison last week for violation the terms of her supervised release, according to the Department of Justice. Prosecutors say she committed five separate violations of those terms.

“This defendant was literally given a second chance to become a productive member of society and has wasted it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ted Imperato said in a statement. “She has clearly shown a willful disregard for the law and must face the consequences for her crimes and actions.”

After a drug dealing conviction, Richardson, who had a lengthy rap sheet, was sentenced to life in prison in June 2006. But she was released from prison last July after Obama commuted her sentence. Obama granted clemency to 1,715 people -- many of them drug offenders -- during his eight years in office.

On July 28, she was a free woman.

But $60 worth of laundry detergent landed her back in jail in April. She was caught stealing the detergent in Pasadena, Calif. and planned to sell it to buy drugs, her attorney told the Houston Chronicle.

Mark Anthony Diaz told the newspaper that his client’s problems stem from her ongoing crack addiction.

Prosecutors say among other conditions Richardson violated are staying in contact with a probation officer and failing to report that she had moved.

The nonprofit that took up Richardson’s cause to receive clemency last year said the system has failed her once again. Clemency for All Nonviolent Drug Offenders, or CAN-DO, said in a statement released Sunday that Richardson was not given proper support after her release from prison.

“It will be easy for some to point a finger at Carol and justify their support of harsh mandatory sentences as a necessity to keep people locked up, when we feel Carol’s current situation is proof that we desperately need to overhaul our current drug policy that treats addiction as a criminal issue, rather than a medical issue,” the group said in a statement. “Imagine locking up an alcoholic for life simply because they suffer from a disease that science claims is often genetic.”

RBP
06-13-2017, 01:30 PM
That's a lot of laundry detergent. Hard to hide like 10 large bottles. :lol:

I agree it's obvious, but for a reason more in line with the CAN-DO point. What's obvious is that you can't take someone whose been in prison for 10 years (and who expected to never get out) and just open the gate and expect a productive member of society. She's likely never been a "productive member of society" and now has no idea how to even function in general society. She was likely scared, broke, socially and spatially disoriented, with no social nor employment skills, and (statistically) has mental health issues. To say she was given a second chance is a little disingenuous.

These are survival crimes that go away when they have resources. Addiction, mental health, homelessness... all see the same thing. And our collective wisdom is to pay $30k a year to warehouse them rather than try and fix the root issues.

lost in melb.
06-14-2017, 07:51 AM
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uomP9wexlNo/VWNymFAlDJI/AAAAAAAAe4Y/BN8SBbWXEzA/s1600/Psychopaths-Dr-Fallon-Brain.png

RBP
06-14-2017, 12:16 PM
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uomP9wexlNo/VWNymFAlDJI/AAAAAAAAe4Y/BN8SBbWXEzA/s1600/Psychopaths-Dr-Fallon-Brain.png

Are you a brain imaging devotee? I haven't gotten there yet. As evidence of biologic changes and differences, sure, but we already knew that it involves chemical imbalances and brain function differences. So what treatment or corrective approach is enhanced with an expensive process of brain imaging? Not asking cynically, I am curious.

Teh One Who Knocks
06-14-2017, 12:18 PM
http://i.imgur.com/H6TVjNt.jpg

RBP
06-14-2017, 01:10 PM
That's a little different. :lol:

lost in melb.
06-15-2017, 02:38 PM
Are you a brain imaging devotee? I haven't gotten there yet. As evidence of biologic changes and differences, sure, but we already knew that it involves chemical imbalances and brain function differences. So what treatment or corrective approach is enhanced with an expensive process of brain imaging? Not asking cynically, I am curious.

Yes! But you may be confusing imaging with treatment. Imaging is just to find out what is happening.

My area of interest/study/career is the effect of meditative states and qualities on brain development, particularly among adolescents. Meditation, particularly transcendental meditation creates whole-brain coherence, which fills in the functional holes that the imaging is showing, cooling down the overactive parts and stimulating the underdeveloped parts.

In fact, part of my reason for visiting is the US is to attend a conference on just this subject.

deebakes
06-21-2017, 11:21 AM
:tup: