My Father's Outrageous Prison Sentence!

[krhedwards]

Please help spread the word about my father's ridiculously long prison sentence!

http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/1739841

[tod evans]

Unfortunately your dad is one of thousands.

My sympathies!

[aGameOfThrones]

D'Alessandro's office recommended the sentence in 1994. How did it get to 60 years? First, Edwards was punished as a habitual felony offender, with 30-year sentences running back-to-back. D'Alessandro said his office had a low tolerance for criminals who tried to slide.

"That's probably what happened to him."

The same month Edwards was sentenced, another Fort Myers man was sent away for 20 years after shooting his son-in-law seven times and killing him outside a bar.


Indeed!

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

15 years was 15 years too much as well.

[dinosaur]

I am so sorry that this happened to your family. These laws are very unjust.

[Odin]

I'm very sorry this has happened to you. Your dad sounds like a wonderful man, unfortunately this society is very cruel and stupid, and so we have laws and courts that are cruel and stupid.

Drug addiction is plainly a medical problem not a criminal one. No one wants to become addicted to drugs, but they do because they do not realize that addiction will be the consequence of their choice to do drugs in the first place.

Anyway, good luck and I hope you can get your dad out sooner rather than later.

[krhedwards]

Thank you all for your kind words!

[heavenlyboy34]

That's insane! My condolences and hopes for the best for your father and family, OP. :(

[squarepusher]

really sucks!!

[Jordan]

You should submit this to Reddit with a similar title. They'll eat this up in http://reddit.com/r/politics

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

I'm very sorry this has happened to you. Your dad sounds like a wonderful man, unfortunately this society is very cruel and stupid, and so we have laws and courts that are cruel and stupid.


I know very few people who are cruel. (stupid, we could toss back and forth.) The blame needs to be placed where it belongs, which is on the cruel, uncaring, profiteers. The stupid are their victims, not their partners.

[jonhowe]

Yes, do put this on reddit, and post back here for us to share.

[Wallrat]

Incredible...many murderers get less than 10 years. What a damned shame.

[Odin]

I know very few people who are cruel. (stupid, we could toss back and forth.) The blame needs to be placed where it belongs, which is on the cruel, uncaring, profiteers. The stupid are their victims, not their partners.

I've been wanting to respond to this but haven't had time, but I think what happened on the New York subway platform today is a good example. Poor guy gets pushed onto the platform and is trying to climb out and no one helps him.

People on the whole are not directly cruel but they are indirectly cruel. They will look the other way at cruel things happening especially when it benefits them. Look at the number of pets that are dumped in animal shelters and euthanized. There are a few understandable circumstances in which people can't keep their pet but in the majority of cases it is people who just can't be bothered with their dog or cat anymore and just drop them off at the pound. About 33% of the animals there are euthanized. But as long as they don't have to kill it themselves it doesn't sit on their conscience.

On another note, my own parents and family members who I think are great people are indirectly cruel, in that they advocate many of the drug laws and especially in my dad's case, wars overseas. Of course they don't have to do the killing themselves, or see the lives ruined because mothers and fathers and sons and daughters are thrown in prison for what is in reality a medical problem. People buy diamonds and jewels that come from mines in which children are exploited and physically harmed, people buy shirts and shoes which come from sweatshops. I could go on and on.

I didn't say people are sadistic, but people are incredibly cruel as long as they don't have to inflict the cruelty themselves. Especially if they can get some benefit from it, but turn their head the other way and pretend it doesn't exist. I'm not exempting myself either - I do this as well but at least I recognize that it is wrong.

That's the sad reality, a lot of people nowadays suck, are stupid, and are cruel. Our laws reflect that. But I fundamentally disagree that the stupid are the victims of the cruel, at least in this country they are the benefactors of cruelty. It is people living elsewhere around this planet who have to suffer for the stupidity and cruelty of some Americans, although occasionally an American citizen is himself a victim of it like the poor fellow who was pushed onto the subway platform. My point though is that in a sick society, the institutions of that society will reflect the people it supposedly serves.

[Anti Federalist]

I didn't say people are sadistic, but people are incredibly cruel as long as they don't have to inflict the cruelty themselves.

Fed, entertained and exercise petty power over their fellow man.

[Tpoints]

15 years was 15 years too much as well.

he passed it up...that's the risk you take.

[itshappening]

have you filled out the paperwork for a presidential pardon?

http://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardon_instructions.htm

Obama hardly pardons anyone but he has commuted a woman in a crack cocaine case who got some ridiculous sentence. The chances are very low though.

[jmdrake]

That's insane. Imagine how much Florida tax payers have paid just because someone had $850 worth of cocaine? Hardly seems worth it. Unfortunately this is all too common today. The idiot public has bought into the idea that prosecutors are judges cranking out ridiculous sentences are somehow "tough on crime". I was kicked off a jury in a case that was basically a domestic dispute that the prosecutor had cranked up to "especially aggravated kidnapping and assault" even though there was no proof of any weapon (prosecutor made the argument that even a pen could be a weapon) no physical evidence, and no evidence at all except from the girlfriend, who had gone back to this man after the alleged assault took place but before reporting the "crime". I saw the prosecutor later and asked him how the case came out. He was gleeful in the fact that he'd gotten this young man 40 years. Disgusting.

[tod evans]

It's a score card for lawyers...

I agree, disgusting!


That's insane. Imagine how much Florida tax payers have paid just because someone had $850 worth of cocaine? Hardly seems worth it. Unfortunately this is all too common today. The idiot public has bought into the idea that prosecutors are judges cranking out ridiculous sentences are somehow "tough on crime". I was kicked off a jury in a case that was basically a domestic dispute that the prosecutor had cranked up to "especially aggravated kidnapping and assault" even though there was no proof of any weapon (prosecutor made the argument that even a pen could be a weapon) no physical evidence, and no evidence at all except from the girlfriend, who had gone back to this man after the alleged assault took place but before reporting the "crime". I saw the prosecutor later and asked him how the case came out. He was gleeful in the fact that he'd gotten this young man 40 years. Disgusting.

[osan]

he passed it up...that's the risk you take.

Gee, no shit. Perhaps you can belabor the obvious just a little more in the spirit of saying something mean just because you can?

The world has enough people acting like dicks, we don't need yet another one so cut it out.

[HOLLYWOOD]

he passed it up...that's the risk you take. People have taken the lives of others or even premeditated murdered/homicides and received much lesser sentences. The worse part is, the taxpayers are forking over the money for the profiteers in government judicial system as well as the Prison Industrial Complex.

The state authorities have become the tyrants of turning the proletariat against one another by use of; threat, force, and imprisonment.

The other is the state selecting/screening the best brainwashed Americans citizens as jurors. The whole government game is rigged and they have built an effective distrust between citizens.

How many times has Paris Hilton or Lindsey Lohan been busted with COKE? What were their sentences again?

[donnay]

This is typical of the kind of [in]justice and tyranny that occurs all over the country. However, the prison industrial complex doesn't like competition. Therefore they put their competitors away for a long time to work for them for a $0.25 a day. :mad:

[Inkblots]

Cases like this are daily reminders of the insanity of our justice system and the bizarre travesties wrought in the name of the war on (some) drugs. I pray that your father receives his freedom before his life is over.

[Tpoints]

People have taken the lives of others or even premeditated murdered/homicides and received much lesser sentences.

And I didn't say they shouldn't receive either life in prison or death penalty.

[paulbot24]

I recently lost my father to cancer which has devastated me. Yet, in some respects, I feel for you and your father more than if you lost him in death. He is not at rest. He is alive, but plagued by demons of regret, which we ALL have, and now his worse enemy is the thing we usually value most in this life, time. This breaks my heart. Print this entire thread (leaving out one prick's remark) and send it to him along with letter after letter after letter. Letters mean more than you can imagine. They're a small reminder that at least one person in the world you remember, still remembers you exist. Don't give up and appeal appeal appeal this draconian sentence. I look forward to you posting a picture of your father walking out of prison with his hands in the air, a free man.

[krhedwards]

Unfortunately your dad is one of thousands.

My sympathies!

Really? We have looked into it and his sentence has been hard to beat for a nonviolent drug offense.

[krhedwards]

15 years was 15 years too much as well.

Exactly.

[krhedwards]

I recently lost my father to cancer which has devastated me. Yet, in some respects, I feel for you and your father more than if you lost him in death. He is not at rest. He is alive, but plagued by demons of regret, which we ALL have, and now his worse enemy is the thing we usually value most in this life, time. This breaks my heart. Print this entire thread (leaving out one prick's remark) and send it to him along with letter after letter after letter. Letters mean more than you can imagine. They're a small reminder that at least one person in the world you remember, still remembers you exist. Don't give up and appeal appeal appeal this draconian sentence. I look forward to you posting a picture of your father walking out of prison with his hands in the air, a free man.

Thank you for your support! I hope one day I can walk freely with him as well.

[krhedwards]

You should submit this to Reddit with a similar title. They'll eat this up in http://reddit.com/r/politics

Doing this now. Thanks for the tip!

[krhedwards]

Please consider signing this petition for his release! http://www.change.org/en-CA/petitions/florida-governor-rick-scott-and-cabinet-members-invoke-clemency-rule-17-commute-michael-s-60-year-sentence-to-time-served#share

[krhedwards]

have you filled out the paperwork for a presidential pardon?

http://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardon_instructions.htm

Obama hardly pardons anyone but he has commuted a woman in a crack cocaine case who got some ridiculous sentence. The chances are very low though.

Thanks for the link!

[krhedwards]

Please upvote on reddit! http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/14gqgq/my_fathers_outrageous_prison_sentence/

[Lindsey]

I didn't say people are sadistic, but people are incredibly cruel as long as they don't have to inflict the cruelty themselves.

Even if they inflict the cruelty themselves, if there is distance between them and their victims, people can do incredibly cruel things - i.e. drone pilots.

[The Free Hornet]

From the article, they can't even win the drug war in prison:


The moment inmate Edwards felt he might die, he changed. It was about five years into his sentence and he ingested so much cocaine on this day his heart began to surge. He crumpled to his bed and asked a fellow inmate to push on his chest.

And this is a great example of how people are punished for exercising their right to a trial:


His legal options were running out. He had filed a flurry of motions. In one, he cited 15 claims, including receiving an unusually harsh sentence for exercising his right to trial and the 14 ways in which his lawyer had failed him.

Good luck and please post updates if we can help or if their is a legal defense fund. *I* happen to support freedom beyond just my local area. ;)

[SpreadOfLiberty]

dammit, sorry about that