ACLU: How to Process Eric Holder’s Major Criminal Law Reform Speech

[ProSense]

How to Process Eric Holder’s Major Criminal Law Reform Speech

By Laura W. Murphy

Attorney General Eric Holder just called mass incarceration a moral and economic failure. He just outlined several major proposals that he says will help to ease major overcrowding in federal prisons. And he just suggested that federal prosecutors should avoid harsh mandatory minimums for certain low-level, non-violent drug offenses.

What should we make of the nation’s top prosecutor calling out the US for throwing too many people behind bars and challenging the failed war on drugs?

First off, we should acknowledge that this is a big deal! This is the first speech by any Attorney General calling for such massive criminal justice reforms. This is the first major address from the Obama Administration calling for action to end the mass incarceration crisis and reduce the racial disparities that plague our criminal justice system. In the same speech, the Attorney General committed to take on the school-to-prison pipeline and called on Congress to end the forced budget cuts that have decimated public defenders nationwide. This is great news.

The ACLU can proudly say that it has been deeply engaged in policy discussions with this administration, and Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Many of the reforms that we have long championed made it into the Attorney General’s speech, including:

1. Developing guidelines to file fewer cases
   
   
2. Directing a group of U.S. Attorneys to examine sentencing disparities and develop recommendations to address them
   
   
3. Directing every U.S. Attorney to designate a Prevention and Reentry Coordinator
   
   
4. Directing every DOJ component to consider whether regulations have collateral consequences that impair reentry
   
   
5. Reducing mandatory minimum charging for low-level drug offenses
   
   
6. Expanding eligibility for compassionate release; and
   
   
7. Identifying and sharing best practices for diversion programs
   
   
8. Calling into question zero tolerance policies and other policies that lead to the school to prison pipeline
   
   
9. Challenging the legal community to make the promise of Gideon (right to counsel) more of a reality

- more -

http://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform-racial-justice/how-process-eric-holders-major-criminal-law-reform-speech

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Thanks. I'm really glad I read this.

It certainly does sound positive, and maybe a major step toward the necessary final state of decriminalization and treating addictions in a harm-reduction-based public health model.

[villager]

12. Hopefully so.

It does seem like a dare-we-say substantial move in the right direction on these issues...

[Jackpine Radical]

13. Even this much will bring out some major money in opposition.

The DEA itself, lots of local LE who have gotten hooked on money from property seizures, the private prison industry, the prison-labor industry, the guards unions in the public prisons--

You might be surprised at what comes crawling out from the Dark Realms to defend our current Draconian drug laws.

[villager]

15. The test will be to see if these reforms go forward, or if the backpedaling kicks in...

because you are right, too much easy rip-off money for the "authorities" to be made, with the current set of "laws..."

[immoderate]

2. In twenty or thirty years we may see some reforms, or...

...maybe not.

--imm

[ProSense]

3. Well,

"In twenty or thirty years we may see some reforms, or...maybe not. "

...the Fair Sentencing Act was signed in 2010, and it's already working.

NYT editorial: Sentencing Reform Starts to Pay Off
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023393947

[indepat]

7. Surely the for-profit prison apparatus won't be pleased, so good luck

on this issue.

[tridim]

8. Their opinion on the matter is irrellevant...

Prisons don't deal with justice, just locking lots of people in cages.

[Jackpine Radical]

14. But they have lots of money & a healthy stable

of bought politicians.

Surely you don't expect "justice" to triumph over greed.

[ProSense]

19. That's true with any policy. Look at health care. n/t

[bigtree]

6. Some of the 'reforms' will be preceded by measures that don't require congressional approval

Holder is calling for a change in Justice Department policies to reserve the most severe penalties for drug offenses for serious, high-level or violent drug traffickers. He has directed his 94 U.S. attorneys across the country to develop specific, locally tailored guidelines for determining when federal charges should be filed and when they should not.

The attorney general can make some changes to drug policy on his own. He is giving new instructions to federal prosecutors on how they should write their criminal complaints when charging low-level drug offenders, to avoid triggering the mandatory minimum sentences . . .

Holder said he has also revised the department’s prison policy to allow for more compassionate releases of elderly inmates who did not commit violent crimes, have served significant portions of their sentences and pose no threat to the public.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/holder-seeks-to-avert-mandatory-minimum-sentences-for-some-low-level-drug-offenders/2013/08/11/343850c2-012c-11e3-96a8-d3b921c0924a_story.html

[indepat]

25. Other than for Madoff-types, why the hell are any elderly persons who have not committed

violent crimes even in prison? What kind of society willy-nilly incarcerates the elderly?

[bigtree]

4. bravo

"The ACLU can proudly say that it has been deeply engaged in policy discussions with this administration, and Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Many of the reforms that we have long championed made it into the Attorney General’s speech . . ."

[ProSense]

10. Yes. n/t

[spanone]

5. k&r...

[Scurrilous]

9. Good news!

[Cha]

11. Thank you, AG Holder!

Many sick and elderly people can be safely released from prison and jail. The ACLU has issued numerous reports including this one, noting that approximately 13.5% of federal prisons are age 50 or older and calling on states and the federal government to make both short-term reforms and systemic changes to our country’s extreme sentencing practices.

People with criminal convictions have for too long been excluded from the economy. We should support Holder in calling for reforms to help people leaving the system, such as federal reentry coordinators and fewer collateral consequences facing people with criminal convictions (which would, in turn, make it easier for people with criminal convictions to obtain employment and housing).

Thanks ProSense

[HardTimes99]

16. Does Holder's speech have any impact or influence upon state laws and

incarceration policies?

I ask b/c Schwarzenegger took a run at the California Prison-Industrial Complex (the prison guards union) and got soundly rebuked for it. There's a lesson in there that bears heeding.

[DainBramaged]

17. "8.Calling into question zero tolerance policies and other policies that lead to the school to

prison pipeline ."


'bout time.

[JDPriestly]

18. This could be a major credit for the Obama administration.

Thanks.

[ProSense]

22. Life changing. n/t

[Number23]

20. K&R This is the only story in this whole damn forum that's actually made me happy today

[ProSense]

21. In the reality, this is a BFD

[ProSense]

23. Kick! n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

24. K&R