Lori Broadway: Biden commutes sentence of woman caught with 15 pounds of heroin, leaves marijuana offenders in jail
WASHINGTON, DC: President Biden granted clemency to 31 federal inmates on Friday, April 28. However, the vast majority of approximately 2,700 federal prisoners serving time for marijuana-related offenses were not included in the list. One of the individuals who received clemency was Lori Broadway, 41, who was caught smuggling 15.7 pounds of heroin on an Amtrak train and was arrested in January 2016.
Court documents revealed that authorities became suspicious of Broadway's activities after she made multiple trips from Houston to New Jersey via Amtrak, with stops in New Orleans, in October and December of 2015. When confronted by police in New Orleans, Broadway claimed to have "a lot" of "cocaine" in her bags, but tests later revealed that the six brown bricks she was carrying contained heroin. "Total weight of the heroin was 15.7 pounds," charging documents revealed.
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Lori Broadway was sentenced to 10 years in prison
Lori Broadway pleaded guilty in June 2016 to transporting between 3 and 10 kilograms of heroin and was sentenced to 10 years in prison with five years of supervised release. Despite being scheduled for early release in August 2024, Biden commuted her sentence along with 30 others, leaving behind the estimated 2,700 federal pot prisoners still in jail. A White House press release listing clemency grants said that Broadway’s "sentence [is] commuted to expire on June 30, 2023, with the remainder to be served in home confinement, leaving intact and in effect the five-year term of supervised release."
President Biden commuted the prison sentences of 31 federal inmates on Friday, mostly for methamphetamine offenses. However, he did not release any of the estimated 2,700 federal prisoners convicted of marijuana offenses. Among the clemency recipients, three were convicted only of smuggling large amounts of marijuana, which is now legal for recreational use in 22 states. It's not clear why Broadway, who was caught smuggling heroin, received clemency. Some documents related to her case are not publicly available, and her attorney did not comment on the matter.
"We were hoping to see more cannabis cases among the first recipients, since they were prioritized during the Biden-Harris campaign as prisoners that would receive mercy if Biden was elected," said Amy Povah, founder of the CAN-DO Foundation, as per the NY Post. "We are also surprised to see that everyone will serve out the remainder of their time on home confinement, which is a new twist we’ve never heard of before," Povah added.
'We should decriminalize marijuana'
On a debate stage four years ago, Biden said, "I think we should decriminalize marijuana, period. And I think everyone — anyone who has a record — should be let out of jail, their records expunged, be completely zeroed out." Campaigners for marijuana legalization expressed anger and disappointment over President Biden's recent mass pardon of federal inmates, which did not include most of the 2,700 federal prisoners serving time for marijuana offenses. In protest, they gathered outside the White House, playing recordings of Biden's campaign promise to free "everyone" imprisoned for marijuana-related crimes, while those affected said they felt let down by the president's inaction.