An African-American man who was given a life sentence when he tested positive for marijuana in violation of his parole has been freed after serving 17 years in prison.
Tyrone Brown was 17 when he and a friend pulled a gun on a man in Dallas, Texas, and demanded his wallet. They took US$2 and gave the wallet back. The pair were soon caught and Brown was sentenced to 10 years' probation. When he tested positive for marijuana the same year the judge, Keith Dean, changed the original sentence to life in prison, commenting: "Good luck, Mr Brown."
The court-appointed defence lawyer failed to object.
The case became notorious after it emerged how lenient the same judge was with a well-connected white man who was given probation for murder. He repeatedly breached probation, including by using cocaine, but Dean sent him to a private treatment center rather than jail and gave him "postcard" probation whereby he wrote to the court once a year.
In jubilant scenes outside the prison in Huntsville, Texas, where he had been confined, Brown was met by friends, family and media on his release.
"I still feel like I'm 17," he told reporters. "I'd like to take a bath. I've been standing up for 17 years."
Looking at family pictures on mobile phones, he said: "When I went in a phone looked like a big block of cheese."
His mother, Nora Brown, said: "It still doesn't feel real ... I keep pinching him."
Following an outcry led by the daily Dallas Morning News, Texas Governor Rick Perry granted Brown a conditional pardon last week. But the terms of the pardon still place restrictions on the 34-year-old. He must live with his mother, report to a parole officer indefinitely, undergo counselling about his re-entry to society and submit to drug treatment.
"Even though I've got my freedom, I'm somewhat bound," Brown said. "I can't predict the future. But I'm going to do everything I can to stay out of there."
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing