Do you remember when Joe Biden gave mass clemency to a bunch of "non-violent drug offenders" mere days before leaving office?
“Today, I am commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of non-violent drug offenses who are serving disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would receive today under current law, policy, and practice,” Biden said in a statement the Friday before leaving office. “Today’s clemency action provides relief for individuals who received lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine, as well as outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes.”
Well, it turns out at least one of those "non-violent drug offenders" Biden gave clemency to was a drug lord who was convicted of killing an eight-year-old boy and his mother.
Relatives of an 8-year-old boy and his mother who were murdered by a Connecticut drug gang are outraged that a man convicted in the killings was one of nearly 2,500 people whose drug-related prison sentences were commuted by former President Joe Biden in his last days in office.
Adrian Peeler served a 20-year state prison sentence for murder conspiracy in the 1999 shootings of Leroy “B.J.” Brown and his mother, Karen Clarke, in Bridgeport — killings that shocked the city and led to improvements in state witness protection. Prosecutors said Brown and his mother were assassinated to prevent the child from testifying in another murder case.
In December 2021, Peeler finished his state sentence but began serving a 15-year term in federal prison for dealing large amounts of crack cocaine.
The federal sentence would have kept him behind bars until 2033. He is now set to be released in July.
“I’m sick and tired and I’m disgusted,” Clarke’s brother, Oswald Clarke, told the Associated Press. “It’s a very shocking thing. My family is very distraught about it. It’s like we’re being traumatized all over again.”
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“We’ve tried for years and years to keep this guy off the streets,” Clarke said. “And it’s a major insult in every way, and the whole state of Connecticut should be shocked, appalled and embarrassed, and the federal government regardless of who’s in power, they all should be embarrassed for the kinds of things they are doing.”
According to the Associated Press, it was not clear how Peeler came to President Biden’s attention. Biden did not publicly disclose specific reasons for commuting Peeler’s federal sentence.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who was the state’s attorney general when Brown and his mother were killed, said “someone dropped the ball” in Peeler’s clemency. He and other political leaders in Connecticut, including Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim, criticized the commutation.
“This was a really vicious murder that changed our laws,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “It also highlights how we need to take a look at the pardon system to see how it can be improved.”
State Sen. Stephen Harding, the Republican minority leader, called the clemency “a slap in the face to all Connecticut victims of violent crimes and their families.”
The U.S. attorney’s office in Connecticut, which prosecuted Adrian Peeler’s drug-related case, stated that it was not consulted or notified about his clemency. I won't be shocked if we find out that Biden freed more killers.
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