Sentencing

The Advisory Council for the Fair Sentencing of Children, a coalition of organizations working to ending the sentencing of juveniles to life without the possibility of parole in the United States, is hiring.

Drug reform hasn't been much of an issue in the presidential campaign, but there are differences between the major party candidates -- and much larger differences between them and a trio of minor party candidates with solidly radical drug reform proposals. For whom to vote?

Another year, another all-time high in US prisoners, and the drug war continues to make a major contribution. This is getting really old.

Citing an alleged link between marijuana use and mental illness, the Australian Medical Association is calling for tougher marijuana penalties. That goes against its earlier position that criminal laws don't work as a deterrent and can in fact be harmful to drug users.

The British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the government body charged with setting drug policy, has a new chairman this week, and he has said he wants to downgrade Ecstasy to a less serious drug classification.

It's not exactly "stop the presses" material, but two new reports from Human Rights Watch and the Sentencing Project provide even more confirmation that America's drug war is racially biased and waged mainly against black Americans.

Susan LeFevre got busted in Michigan at age 19 for small-time heroin sales. She copped a plea in hopes of leniency, but was instead sentenced to at least 10 years in prison. In 1976, she jumped the wall and fled to California, where she has led an exemplary life every since. Now, thanks to an anonymous tip, she has been tracked down and jailed pending extradition to Michigan. Should she now have to serve her time?

Once upon a time, a jury's acquittal was the final word for a defendant facing punishment. Thanks to the "war on drugs," that is no longer the case, and defendants can be punished for crimes of which they were never convicted or even acquitted. Sometimes the charges don't even need to go to court at all.

A federal judge in Wisconsin added 15 years to a man's sentence for a crack cocaine charge, even though a jury acquitted him on that count. Now, the Supreme Court has declined to hear the case.

Two weeks after it voted to remove criminal penalties for marijuana possession, a Vermont Senate committee has voted to halve the quantities of heroin or cocaine necessary to trigger a trafficking charge.