Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a warrior in search of a
battlefield. Unfortunately, he has the power to create one, even if the
majority of the country he serves has decided that the war he thirsts for
should not be fought, reported The Week.
With a two-page
memo sent last week from the AG's office to the nation's 5,000-plus
assistant U.S. attorneys, Sessions wiped away former Obama administration
Attorney General Eric Holder's August 2013 directive,
which ordered prosecutors to use discretion when bringing charges against
defendants who did not have a history of violence, gang associations, or
"significant criminal history." Holder's memo also instructed federal
prosecutors to not purposefully pile on charges so as to trigger mandatory
minimum sentences — which handcuff judges from exercising their own discretion
— but to "evaluate these factors in an equally thoughtful and reasoned
manner."
Sessions' Department of Justice (DOJ) will have no more of that
thoughtfulness. Instead, America's "top cop" has essentially rebooted
the war on drugs, a failed and devastating law enforcement strategy that
remains unpopular with
a majority of Americans (no
matter their political affiliation) and that has only served to enrich drug
cartels, unnecessarily divert law enforcement resources, and contribute to the
tragedy of mass incarceration.
By affirming "a core principle that prosecutors should
charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense," Sessions'
memo turns back the clock and reimposes a "one size fits all"
approach to federal prosecutions. The memo specifically cites the pursuit of
mandatory minimum sentences as being part of its "moral and just" congressional
mandate, and ludicrously states that treating all suspected criminals as
harshly as possible no matter their individual circumstances "produces
consistency."
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