Rufus White gets life for cocaine crumbs after prosecutor replaces all-black jury with all white but
A Shreveport police officer attempted to pull over White’s car for having tinted windows, captured him after a short foot chase, and recovered a handgun on the ground that the officer suspected White had dropped.
Hours after White was arrested and booked for gun possession, a baggie of cocaine was found on the floorboard in the back of the police car that was used to transport him to the police precinct. He was later charged with leaving the baggie in the patrol car.
According to court records, during voir dire the prosecutor objected to all black potential jurors, and replaced all but one of the black jurors with a white juror.
White was convicted at trial of cocaine possession and was sentenced to mandatory life without parole as a third-strike offender for an offense that usually carries a sentence of zero to five years.
“It just seemed like your whole world end,” White recalls of his sentencing. “It hurts very deep, and you lose everything on the outside.
During his incarceration, White has participated in Narcotics Anonymous, anger management, and academic programs.
His mother, Eisibe Sneed, told the ACLU, “When they sentenced my child, they sentenced me too. I’m in Angola too—my heart is there.” “It destroyed me,” she added. “My life was taken too.” She says that the drive son is six hours from her Shreveport home,
“If my son has done something, let the sentence fit the crime. But you are going to over sentence my child, it just don’t make no sense,” she said. “They gave my baby natural life. The crime doesn’t match the time.”
Read full story at ACLU Special Report. A Living Death: Life Without Parole for Nonviolent Offenses.
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