{"id":1678542,"date":"2022-10-07T15:50:10","date_gmt":"2022-10-07T19:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1678542"},"modified":"2022-10-07T15:51:53","modified_gmt":"2022-10-07T19:51:53","slug":"bidens-mass-pardon-for-marijuana-possession-likely-benefitting-offenders-guilty-of-worse-crimes-expert-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bidens-mass-pardon-for-marijuana-possession-likely-benefitting-offenders-guilty-of-worse-crimes-expert-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden\u2019s Mass Pardon For Marijuana Possession Likely Benefitting Offenders Guilty Of Worse Crimes, Expert Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbidens-mass-pardon-for-marijuana-possession-likely-benefitting-offenders-guilty-of-worse-crimes-expert-says%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1678542&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/joe-biden\">Joe Biden<\/a>\u2019s mass pardon of those convicted of simple <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/marijuana\">marijuana<\/a> possession on Thursday is likely to benefit many who were arrested for more serious crimes, according to a legal expert from The Heritage Foundation.<\/p>\n<p>Biden <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/statements-releases\/2022\/10\/06\/statement-from-president-biden-on-marijuana-reform\/\">announced<\/a> an order Thursday pardoning thousands of people convicted of \u201csimple possession of marijuana.\u201d The president also called on the Health and Human Services secretary and the attorney general to \u201creview expeditiously how marijuana is scheduled under federal law.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs I often said during my campaign for president, no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana. Sending people to prison for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives and incarcerated people for conduct that many states no longer prohibit,\u201d Biden said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>A vast majority of criminal convictions are the <a href=\"https:\/\/bja.ojp.gov\/sites\/g\/files\/xyckuh186\/files\/media\/document\/PleaBargainingResearchSummary.pdf\">result<\/a> of plea deals, so many of those benefiting from the president\u2019s pardon were likely originally charged with more serious crimes, according to Paul Larkin, senior legal research fellow at The Heritage Foundation\u2019s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c95% of the time, federal prosecutors engage in plea bargaining,\u201d Larkin told The Daily Wire. \u201cIs it possible or likely people are going to benefit from this who don\u2019t deserve it because they actually were accused of a more serious crime? Damn right there is.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Larkin served nearly a decade investigating and prosecuting criminal cases for the Department of Justice. In addition, he served stints as counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and as a special agent for, and later acting director of, the Criminal Investigation Division of the Environmental Protection Agency.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou are going to have a very large number of people affected by this who were charged with something far more serious so that the government had leverage to get them to cooperate, and then they pled it down to a simple misdemeanor possession,\u201d Larkin said. He gave the example of a drug runner caught smuggling contraband into the U.S. via a go-fast boat.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody who gets arrested in that circumstance for bringing in, you know, a large quantity of ganja is going to be, you know, eager to make a plea deal because they want to cut their time in prison,\u201d Larkin said. \u201cSo what do they do? The government goes along as long as they cooperate. The guy piloting the go-fast boat says who he dealt with at the freighter and who he was supposed to deliver the cannabis to onshore. All that sort of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo they make cases, which is good, and then the guy who helps them out gets a break,\u201d Larkin said.<\/p>\n<p>A senior administration official <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/press-briefings\/2022\/10\/06\/background-press-call-on-marijuana-reform\/\">told<\/a> reporters on Thursday that Biden\u2019s order is estimated to apply to \u201cover 6,500 people\u201d convicted of simple marijuana possession from 1992 to 2021, as well as thousands of others convicted under the Washington, D.C., drug code. The official also said that no one is in federal prison today solely on simple marijuana possession.<\/p>\n<p>Trevor Burrus, research fellow for constitutional studies at the CATO Institute, said that Biden\u2019s announcement was \u201cwelcome and long overdue.\u201d Biden\u2019s announcement will \u201chopefully be the first of many that will roll back our monstrous federal war on marijuana,\u201d Burrus said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[F]or 85 years it has ruined countless lives. Marijuana should never have been prohibited, and President Biden further asking the Secretary of Health and Human Services to review marijuana\u2019s Schedule I status will hopefully correct that error,\u201d Burrus said.<\/p>\n<p>Larkin said the timing of Biden\u2019s pardon, coming weeks before midterms and on the heels of Biden\u2019s student debt relief announcement, strongly suggests political motives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is just, really, a fraudulent use of the pardon power because it\u2019s designed to deceive the public into thinking he\u2019s actually done something noble,\u201d Larkin said. \u201cYou know, you can do the right thing for the wrong reason, and that\u2019s what\u2019s going on here. If you think these people should not have been convicted because this should not be a crime, then you should have done it early on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Joe Biden\u2019s mass pardon of those convicted of simple marijuana possession on Thursday is likely to benefit many who were arrested for more serious crimes, according to a legal expert from The Heritage Foundation. Biden announced an order Thursday pardoning thousands of people convicted of \u201csimple possession of marijuana.\u201d The president also called on &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1678544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1678542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1678542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1678542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1678542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1678544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1678542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1678542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1678542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}