Beaten, Tortured and Sentenced 25-to-Life for Minor Drug Offense

[babylonsister]

Beaten, Tortured and Sentenced 25-to-Life for Minor Drug Offense

By Randy Credico, Huffington Post. Posted November 22, 2008.

Enough is enough. It's time to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws, a 36-year failed experiment in racism, injustice and government waste.



"Woe to those who make unjust laws,

to those who issue oppressive decrees,

to deprive the poor of their rights,

and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people"

- Isaiah 10:1



Often, during days that never seem to end, Anthony Williams will repair to a corner of his dark, dank, cell in the Eastern Correctional Facility in upstate New York. This is where he ponders, meditates, and prays. And prays and prays, using his faith to rekindle fading dreams that someday, soon, his nightmare will come to a merciful end. Then he rises to write yet another pro se motion, casting it like bread upon the waters of justice, hoping this will be the one that will not be denied by yet another faceless judge.

We of the outside world, even in our wildest imaginations, might never fully comprehend the life of Anthony Williams. Among the many cases chronicled by this office over a dozen years -- and we sometimes imagine that have seen it all -- none causes more loss of sleep than knowledge of the dreadful plight of Anthony Williams.

Williams is serving a 25-year-to-life sentence for a "mickey mouse" drug offense that occurred in Albany County back in 1991. Anthony has already served more than 17 years of that sentence, dragged in chains from one maximum-security prison to the next. Though he is among the least of small offenders, he is serving the longest of times. He just can't find his way home from perpetual exile behind thick walls trimmed with razor wire.

Yet, somehow, he remains optimistic and fights on. As does his cancer-stricken mother, Pastor Nazimova, a leader of the Mothers of the New York Disappeared.

From the onset, Williams' criminal justice journey has been a horror show. Prior to even being charged, he was sequestered for eight hours in a motel room, where his arrest took place. During this ordeal, he was tortured and beaten senseless by rogue elements of the Albany Police Department's "Special Investigation Unit." Long before the degrading excesses of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, these police "interrogators" tried to forcibly extract "information" that Williams could not provide. Ultimately, he had to be rushed by ambulance from the motel to the county hospital for emergency care.

more...

http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/108021/beaten%2C_tortured_and_sentenced_25-to-life_for_minor_drug_offense/?page=entire

[boobooday]

1. Anthony's story is heartwrenching and unconscionable

How many thousands more are there with similar experiences?

How much of our hard-earned money is spent to support this inhumane and unjust machine? They take our money and give it to corporations who lobby to lock up more and more of our friends, family, and fellow citizens.

The War on Drugs is obviously a racket for the prison industry. I really believe that along with operating health care and war for profit, the for-profit prison system creates a trifecta of immorality in our society.

[formercia]

2. When I think of Nelson Rockefeller

I am reminded of the Attica Prison riot. Rockefeller screwed the pooch big-time.

[loudsue]

3. This kind of thing just has to stop. What kind of country can call itself "free"

when we do everything Saddam Hussein did, and more. The prison system in this country becoming "privatized" has caused even more of this than we had before, and these "conservative" judges should all be put in chains, themselves, for doing this type of thing to people's lives.

[Leftist Agitator]

4. What exactly did this guy do?

A "Mickey Mouse" drug offense?

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

I'd like to know exactly what he was charged with, which drugs were involved, what quantity, etc.

If he was selling pot or something, that's one thing, if he was dealing heroin, that's quite another.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

5. Even if he dealt heroin, he may have been an addict who

was forced to deal small amounts as the only way to pay for his fix.

The way the system works, addicts who do this can get long sentences while the actual kingpin pushers get reduced sentences for "testifying against them."

I've gradually become convinced that our drug laws do more to harm the social fabric than actual drugs do.

[Joe Chi Minh]

7. Spot on. If the Goverment meant business, they'd execute white-collar drug dealers,

or at least give them 50 years plus sentences.

There is no hope of any kind of moral regeneration in the UK, as every page of our newspapers attest. The political and managerial classes don't seem to have any concept of what it would entail. But many of you have a concept of what even a half-decent society would look like, and what is more, you are energized to raise Cain until you get it.

[rhett o rick]

6. K & R