Pubdate: Sat, 17 Aug 2013
Source: Manteca Bulletin (CA)
Copyright: 2013 Manteca Bulletin
Contact:  http://www.mantecabulletin.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3670
Author: Debra Saunders

GET BIG GOVERNMENT OUT OF SMALL CRIMES

It was big news Monday when Attorney General Eric Holder told the 
American Bar Association in San Francisco, "Certain low-level 
nonviolent drug offenders who have no ties to large-scale 
organizations, gangs or cartels will no longer be charged with 
offenses that impose draconian mandatory minimum sentences."

It was big news because the Obama administration finally looked to 
what it could do about racial disparities under federal jurisdiction 
- - instead of pointing at what others in the criminal justice system 
are doing wrong.

It was big news because the administration finally has caught up with 
Republicans such as Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah. 
Paul and Lee have co-sponsored bills with Dick Durbin of Illinois and 
Pat Leahy of Vermont to reform mandatory minimum sentences so that 
nonviolent small-time offenders don't serve decades in prison while 
kingpins who can inform on them serve lesser time.

It's big news that the administration finally is saying that it won't 
prosecute cases it never should have touched to begin with. You don't 
send the heavy artillery of federal enforcement to roust varmints 
when its job is supposed to be to bring down the top of the food 
chain in the drug trade.

I am not sure the Department of Justice is clear that it is supposed 
to limit its fire to big cases. A summary of Holder's new "Smart on 
Crime" approach explained that in some cases involving nonviolent 
offenders, "prosecutors ought to consider alternatives to 
incarceration, such as drug courts, specialty courts, or other 
diversion programs." Again, why would the federal government even go 
after someone who just needs a good rehab program?

Julie Stewart, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, told 
me that the fact that Holder used this rhetoric is big. "Considering 
the crumbs we've been fed the last 20 years," said Stewart, "this is 
kind of bite-sized." Now the administration will follow conservatives 
and liberals who have been clamoring for sentencing reform.

Holder never got around to explaining how his department will address 
marijuana enforcement in light of state laws legalizing not only 
medical marijuana but also recreational use of marijuana. He still 
plans to leave those decisions to U.S. attorneys, even though he 
spoke in favor of leaving some crimes to local prosecutors.

Also, the attorney general said nothing about what the administration 
plans to do about inmates who are serving draconian sentences now. 
When it comes to his use of the power to pardon and commute federal 
sentences, President Barack Obama has shown the least amount of mercy 
of any modern American president, yet Holder named no individual in 
prison today whose sentence the president will commute. Alas, this 
president demands racial justice only where he has little authority.

"This president wants to be compared to (Abraham) Lincoln and (Martin 
Luther) King, but he misses the main points of their arguments," 
noted Craig DeRoche of the conservative Justice Fellowship. "They 
were advancing the cause of justice."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom