Biden’s Mass Pardon For Marijuana Possession Likely Benefitting Offenders Guilty Of Worse Crimes, Expert Says | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Tim Pearce.

    President Joe Biden's 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 "simple possession of marijuana." The president also called on the Health and Human Services secretary and the attorney general to "review expeditiously how marijuana is scheduled under federal law."

    "As 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," Biden said in a statement.

    A vast majority of criminal convictions are the result of plea deals, so many of those benefiting from the president's pardon were likely originally charged with more serious crimes, according to Paul Larkin, senior legal research fellow at The Heritage Foundation's Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.

    "95% of the time, federal prosecutors engage in plea bargaining," Larkin told The Daily Wire. "Is it possible or likely people are going to benefit from this who don't deserve it because they actually were accused of a more serious crime? Damn right there is."

    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.

    "You 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," Larkin said. He gave the example of a drug runner caught smuggling contraband into the U.S. via a go-fast boat.

    "Everybody 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," Larkin said. "So 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."

    "So they make cases, which is good, and then the guy who helps them out gets a break," Larkin said.

    A senior administration official told reporters on Thursday that Biden's order is estimated to apply to "over 6,500 people" 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.

    Trevor Burrus, research fellow for constitutional studies at the CATO Institute, said that Biden's announcement was "welcome and long overdue." Biden's announcement will "hopefully be the first of many that will roll back our monstrous federal war on marijuana," Burrus said in a statement.

    "[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's Schedule I status will hopefully correct that error," Burrus said.

    Larkin said the timing of Biden's pardon, coming weeks before midterms and on the heels of Biden's student debt relief announcement, strongly suggests political motives.

    "This is just, really, a fraudulent use of the pardon power because it's designed to deceive the public into thinking he's actually done something noble," Larkin said. "You know, you can do the right thing for the wrong reason, and that's what's 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."

poll#162

In what may be the most divisive period in modern American History, even more divisive than the turbulent sixties due to today's lack of patriotism, consider what are the major catalysts causing so much of this calamity of conflict, and vote: What most instigates the division of America, on this day September 20, 2022?

  Racism within our society

  Sex realignment to the detriment of our society.

  Biden /Harris Wide Open Southern Border Policy for the Demographic Upheaval of OUR Constitutional Republic

  Rampant Crime in Democratic controlled cities, and the possible contagion elsewhere

  Covid Pandemic, and its mishandling at the political, and bureaucratic levels.

  The unresolved questions /allegation regarding the flawed 2020 General Election

  January 6th Riot or "Armed Insurrection", depending upon patriotic perspective

  Joe Biden as Divisive Leader; Ineffective and Corrupt Executive

  Failed Education Industry, from an overall perspective, regarding all levels of education.

  Propagandistic Media in complete conflict with the First Amendment's guarantee of Freedom of Speech, and the awesome responsibility of a Free Press..

  "Orangeman Bad!"

  Bureaucracy rushing to a behemoth size, its unjustified expense, and far too often overreach.

  The Weaponized Deep State for political purposes

  A secular ambivalence to all that is real.

  Record number of overdose deaths from opioids and now Fentanyl

  Biden Administration's disastrous Foreign Policy

  Bidenflation /supply chain failure inevitably evolving into stagflation and recession.

  "Ultra MAGA Extremists" freely speaking louder AND LOUDER!

927 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?

poll#154

Inarguably, the policies of the Democrats in congress and Joe Biden as the Executive is plunging the United States into a recession, if we are not already there; a recession that was completely avoidable. Will abrupt changes in policies occur in time?

  Yes, the Democrats have a bold plan, yet to be revealed, to save us.

  No, there will have to be a complete undoing of the damage done by these Democrats.

  I can't do simple math, so how am I to understand the concept of basic economics.

1,216 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?