In Might 2021, we wrote in regards to the injustice of the Mississippi Court docket of Appeals affirming a life sentence with out eligibility for probation or parole within the case of Allen Russell. Mr. Russell was present in possession of 43 grams (1.5 ounces) of marijuana. A authorized foundation for Mr. Russell’s brutal sentence was the truth that he had two prior felonies. Morally, nevertheless, the sentence was stunning and led to widespread outrage and condemnation.
Mr. Russell’s attorneys appealed his sentence to the Mississippi Supreme Court docket. The Professional Bono Committee of the International Cannabis Bar Association (“INCBA”) filed an amicus temporary in assist of Mr. Russell. You might discover the temporary here. (Full disclosure: I’m a member of that Committee and supplied some help with the temporary, which was principally authored by Michelle Mabugat with the help of then-law scholar Christopher Clark.)
I’m sorry to report the utter travesty that Mr. Russell’s sentence will stand, and that he’ll spend the remainder of his life in a state jail.
In Might 2022, a majority of the Mississippi Supreme Court docket affirmed Mr. Russell’s life sentence with out eligibility for probation or parole over the dissent of a number of justices. An attraction to the Supreme Court docket of the US is Mr. Russell’s solely avenue for aid. For a number of difficult authorized causes that I gained’t get into, such an attraction has nearly no probability of being granted certiorari (evaluation).
As an alternative of a critique of the Mississippi Supreme Court docket’s opinion, affirming Mr. Russell’s life sentence with out eligibility for probation or parole for possession of 43 grams of marijuana, I exhort you to learn The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. Or watch 13th, the highly effective documentary movie directed by Ava Duvernay. These items of labor will higher clarify how nowadays—the place you should purchase shares in a publicly traded marijuana firm—that an individual of shade results in jail for all times with no probability of ever (ever!) getting out due to 43 grams of marijuana.