Snoop and two activists – Alice Johnson and Weldon Angelos – are trying to have the sentence of Death Row Records co-founder Michael ‘Harry-O’ Harris commuted after 30 years behind bars
As the Unites States prepares to usher in Joe Biden as the 46th president, the current commander-in-chief has been spending some of his remaining time in office looking over a list of people to potentially pardon or commute their sentences.
Hip-hop legend Snoop Dogg, who has been working closely with a couple of activists with ties to the White House, is among those lobbying U.S. President Donald J. Trump before he becomes a civilian again.
The trio are trying to have the sentence of Death Row Records co-founder Michael ‘Harry-O’ Harris commuted after spending more than three decades behind bars, according to The Daily Beast.
Harris, now 58, was convicted of attempted murder and kidnapping in 1988, and is currently being held at a Federal Correctional Facility in Lompoc, California.
During his time locked-up, Harris reportedly reinvented himself as an activist, who’s been campaigning for prison reform.
With a sentence that’s supposed to go through until late 2028, Harris and his legal team had pushed for an early compassionate release, due to the dangers of COVID-19 that ravaged the prison, but the request was denied.
Now, in a last-ditch effort, Snoop (born Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr.) and other advocates insist he’s reformed himself in prison and are hoping the Trump administration will step in and grant him his release.
‘The president knows about it. I’ve spoken with Ivanka [Trump] and I’ve spoken with Jared [Kushner], and I’ve been told that President Trump is aware of the case and has been reviewing it,’ Alice Johnson, a criminal justice reform advocate after President Trump pardoned her life sentence with help from Kim Kardashian two-and-a-half years ago, said in an interview.
‘The president knows how much this case means to me,’ Johnson continued before adding, ‘In reviewing Michael Harris’ case, his story, and what he’s gone through, this is such an unfair case.’
‘He should have been home a decade ago. I really felt for this man. I am very hopeful that he will be home before the end of the Trump administration.’
Weldon Angelos, another former prisoner pardoned by Trump, brought the case to the attention of Johnson after discussing it with Snoop Dogg. All three of them then reviewed it together during a conference call, where the rapper described Harris as a ‘pillar of the community.’
Snoop’s push for Harris doesn’t come without a potential snafu, considering just two years ago he clashed with President Trump over a music video where Snoop shot a fake gun at a clown that resembled Trump.
‘Can you imagine what the outcry would be if @SnoopDogg, failing career and all, had aimed and fired the gun at President Obama? Jail time!’ Trump wrote on his since-deleted Twitter account.
The Murder Was The Case star has also been critical of Mr. Trump periodically during his four years in the White House. However, Johnson maintains Snoop is ‘appreciative” of Trump’s prison reform policies., and has even gone as far as to give Johnson a message to convey to the president: ‘I appreciate what you’ve done for some of our brothers, even if you don’t release Mr. Harris.’
Harris helped create and finance Death Row Records, which was founded in 1992, and at one point had an artist roster that included Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre and The Dogg Pound.
At its peak, Death Row was making over $100 million a year, but by the late 1990s the label began to decline following the murder of Shakur; the imprisonment of co-founder Suge Knight; and the departures of Snoop and Dr. Dre.
Following a slew of lawsuits and controversies, Death Row Records filed for bankruptcy in 2006 and was auctioned to WIDEawake Entertainment for $18 million on January 15, 2009.
