{"id":2999,"date":"2023-01-01T04:36:25","date_gmt":"2023-01-01T10:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=2999"},"modified":"2023-03-14T02:47:35","modified_gmt":"2023-03-14T07:47:35","slug":"bidens-pardons-show-focus-on-easing-drug-punishments-and-womens-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=2999","title":{"rendered":"Biden’s pardons show focus on easing drug punishments, and women’s rights<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, Dec 30 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday pardoned six people who have already served time for crimes, including five convicted of drug or alcohol-related offenses and a woman who killed her allegedly abusive husband nearly five decades ago.
\nThe latest pardons showed Biden nudging U.S. criminal justice policy away from the war-on-drugs ethos that he and other liberal lawmakers once championed.
\nNow gearing up for a possible re-election bid in 2024, the Democratic president faces pressure to show progress on racial and criminal justice issues. The United States has less than 5% of the world’s population but a fifth of its prisoners. A disproportionate share are people of color, who make up a sizable chunk of Biden’s base of support.<\/p>\n

All three of Biden’s uses of the\u00a0pardon power<\/a>\u00a0so far in his term have involved reducing the sentences of people convicted of drug-related offenses.<\/p>\n

In October, he\u00a0dismissed the sentences<\/a>\u00a0of thousands of people with federal offenses for simple marijuana possession and launched a reexamination of how the drug is classified by federal officials.<\/p>\n

All of the people pardoned on Friday were convicted and served a sentence for the crime, some of which happened decades ago, when they were young. In the years since, they have developed careers and been involved in community service.<\/p>\n

One of those pardoned was Beverly Ann Ibn-Tamas, now 80, who shot and killed her neurosurgeon husband while she was pregnant in 1976. The case of Ibn-Tamas, who said she was abused and acted in self-defense, became a model for using a woman’s history of abuse in legal arguments.<\/p>\n

After she was released, Ibn-Tamas worked in healthcare and raised the two children fathered by her husband as a single mother, the White House said. Her daughter is now an attorney.<\/p>\n

Others on Biden’s list included Vincente Ray Flores, an active-duty Air Force service member, now 37, who was convicted for consuming ecstasy and alcohol while serving at age 19, according to the White House.<\/p>\n

Biden also pardoned Edward Lincoln De Coito III, a decorated U.S. Army veteran, now 50, who was briefly a courier for marijuana at age 23 and served more than a year in prison.<\/p>\n

Among the others was a 66-year-old convicted of a crime related to a cocaine deal at age 22; a 77-year-old man who sold whiskey without tax stamps at age 18; and a 72-year old who rented space that was used to grow marijuana nearly 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

\n

Reuters<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, Dec 30 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday pardoned six people who have already served time for crimes, including five convicted of drug or alcohol-related offenses and a woman who killed her allegedly abusive husband nearly five decades ago. The latest pardons showed Biden nudging U.S. criminal justice policy away from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3000,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1169,3211,1183,2861,3248,3250,3249],"class_list":["post-2999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-biden","tag-criminal-justice","tag-drug","tag-drugs","tag-pardons","tag-war-on-drugs","tag-womens-rights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2999"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7428,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999\/revisions\/7428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}