"If we don't bring Michelle home, she will die in that prison."
Michelle West has spent decades in prison on a drug conspiracy charge.
�Now her daughter is calling on President Biden to grant her and 99 other women clemency, with the @TheCouncil.us.
Michelle West has spent decades in prison on a drug conspiracy charge.
�Now her daughter is calling on President Biden to grant her and 99 other women clemency, with the @TheCouncil.us.
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NewsTranscript
00:00My last memory of my mom in person was the last day that I seen her on the streets and that was us driving to school.
00:07She kissed me and told me she'd pick me up later at around 3 o'clock and then she never picked me up.
00:21There were different things in my life that were occurring as a teenager and times when I felt I really needed my mom and only my mom and she wasn't there.
00:30She was there for me.
00:38Even in her low situation she still has figured out how to work around that and be there for me and she's guided me and she has been very strong with dealing with this situation because most people are not able to.
01:31Even though people make mistakes, it doesn't mean that they have to be thrown away for two life sentences or 50 years or life sentences. Everyone deserves a second opportunity. Everyone can change.
01:54If we don't bring Michelle home, she will die in that prison.
02:30We literally in black and brown communities around the country, conspiracy was used to throw a net over entire neighborhoods where those drug cases had 50 co-defendant cases.
02:44And as a result of that, many women were sentenced to serve these very long and draconian sentences that but for conspiracy, you could not justify the indictment, the prosecution and the mandatory minimum 10, 15, 25, even life with no parole sentences that these women received.
03:09Michelle did not pull the trigger. Michelle did not commit the murder. Michelle did not know about the murder. However, because of conspiracy and because of the way that the federal government uses other people, the person who was directly involved and engaged in the death of that other person testified against Michelle and didn't do any time where Michelle is currently incarcerated.
03:37When women are forced to live in a prison, prisons don't have good health care. Lots of prisons are old and just the environment is toxic.
04:07That pen should be taken out and President Biden in particular should be working to help correct the injustices of the criminal legal system.
04:23Much of them created by a 1991 1994 Crime Act that has just caused an incredible amount of disruption in black and brown communities, family disruption, economic disruption, in this case for us in our communities that have been most directly affected.
04:45Clemency is racial justice.