Sessions issues sweeping new criminal charging policy

[brooklynite]

Source: Washington Post

Attorney General Jeff Sessions overturned the sweeping criminal charging policy of former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. and directed his federal prosecutors Thursday to charge defendants with the most serious, provable crimes carrying the most severe penalties.

The Holder memo, issued in August 2013, instructed his prosecutors to avoid charging certain defendants with drug offenses that would trigger long mandatory minimum sentences. Defendants who met a set of criteria such as not belonging to a large-scale drug trafficking organization, gang or cartel, qualified for lesser charges — and in turn less prison time — under Holder’s policy.

But Sessions’s new charging policy, outlined in a two-page memo and sent to more than 5,000 assistant U.S. attorneys across the country and all assistant attorneys general in Washington, orders prosecutors to “charge and purse the most serious, readily provable offense” and rescinds Holder’s policy immediately.

The Sessions memo marks the first significant criminal justice effort by the Trump administration to bring back the toughest practices of the drug war, which had fallen out of favor in recent years with a bipartisan movement to undo the damaging effects of mass incarceration.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/sessions-issues-sweeping-new-criminal-charging-policy/2017/05/11/4752bd42-3697-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html

[greymattermom]

1. Are the planning to arrest almost everyone in Colorado?

and a few other states?

[sharedvalues]

2. Only the black and brown people, given Sessions' history

[NurseJackie]

24. You beat me to it... that's exactly what I was going to reply.

[heaven05]

34. this nt

[Sunlei]

33. That is the RW Federal governments plan. to fill their 'for profit' private prisons. stocks up

even local jails are expanding beds and going private.

[sharedvalues]

47. Who's at fault? Private prison CEOs like that guy

Damon Hinninger, CEO of a prison firm, stands to make money from incarcerating more people.

[appleannie1943]

3. Gotta keep those private prisons full. No profit in an empty cell. Who cares if it ruins a life.

[babylonsister]

11. Exactly. Gotta keep lining the cronies' pockets. nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. Also ... lock 'em up & take away their vote; more voter suppression in a way. . . nt

[not fooled]

44. Plus

slave prison labor for corporations.

[enough]

4. Pure evil. NT

[riversedge]

5. ONLY* a veto proof majority in Congress can push back on this now.

It would take a miracle a bit miracle.

[orangecrush]

6. Here's hoping

He shares a cell with 45 very soon.

[Achilleaze]

7. republican perjurer AG recuses himself from compassion

[bucolic_frolic]

8. for citizens

unequal or varying application of the laws has got to be frustrating

first one way, then another

this is all about control and fear

[Else You Are Mad]

9. This new policy...

No doubt, only applies to those states that voted for Hillary and the minorities in the states that voted for Trump.

[Ligyron]

10. Let's hope the prosecutors ignore this directive for the most part.

but in some areas, fat chance of that happening.

I really thought this country was on the right track and then Hills lost the election...

[cannabis_flower]

16. Hillary didn't lose

The election was stolen.

[Ligyron]

18. Point taken.

Absolutely.

[logosoco]

12. Well this is not going to make America great.

The drug war is something that was a waste of time, money and lives.

Making drugs legal would put an end to most cartels. But then the prison corporations (which how is that even a thing in the "land of the free&quot would lose money.

[Sunlei]

37. The local police already 'group' with federal police to split the loot when they seize homes, cars,

cash. IMO, within a year jail/prison/ populations will double or triple. Some people will wait years in jail for a trial.

Undocumented persons will wait years in the new detention camps- if they want to see an immigration Judge.

[yardwork]

13. Kick for visibility.

[Norbert9]

14. Mass incarceration? You mean 21st century slavery

[dalton99a]

17. Marijuana is more harmful to the country than public corruption and treason

[The Wizard]

19. Sessions is a domestic terrorist

hiding in the Trump White House.

[OldRedneck]

20. Well, okay . . .

Sessions ". . . directed his federal prosecutors Thursday to charge defendants with the most serious, provable crimes carrying the most severe penalties."

So this means Trump will be charged with treason????

[UCmeNdc]

21. They should be more worried about espionage against the United States

Plus lying under oath.

[SCVDem]

22. Look for more shoot-outs!

You ain't takin' me alive copper!!

This can only escalate into urban warfare.

[ProfessorGAC]

23. Because Clearly This Is What Jesus Would Do

That little troll is a serious punk with a world class Napoleon complex. He needs to recuse himself from any public life. Just stay home and dream about the antebellum south Li'l Jeffy.

[world wide wally]

25. Does this include things like treason, collusion with a foreign power and all those

"millionaire" - politician type crimes?

[TheFrenchRazor]

46. 'course not; those are mere trivialities compared to pot-smoking or pill-popping. nt

[zentrum]

26. This is tragic. nt

[They_Live]

27. Juries don't want to convict/sentence for small drug offenses

is what I've noticed. If there is a jury involved, anyway.

[Sunlei]

32. people wait years in jail these days if they want a 'jury trial'. almost all accept plea deals to

get out of jail.

[barbtries]

28. Sessions is a racist pig

with no morals or ethics whatsoever. he is unfit for his position. slime.

[joeybee12]

29. Racist, fascist scum

Knr

[Sunlei]

30. RW will go for the low hanging fruit first. everyone who is listed, registered, provided their names

[malthaussen]

31. Be careful what you wish for, Jeffy.

Ah, that some future AG would prosecute him for perjury.

-- Mal

[JudyM]

35. Let us hope.

[dhill926]

36. see what you voted for....

pot smoking rednecks....

[Solly Mack]

38. Sessions is a sick-minded man.

There are a lot of damaged people in the GOP.

[chowder66]

40. That is the stark truth. nt

[elmac]

39. This is what fascists do. nt

[lark]

41. I hate this malovolent elf as much as his boss.

He's every bit as vile, traitorous, racist, greedy and a killer to the working class as the orange assface.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

42. Those private prisons need to make money somehow

[OKNancy]

43. kick

[Blue_Tires]

45. Voting matters.... Elections matter...

[qwlauren35]

49. The people who will be affected

are not high percentage voters. They won't be highly educated. They won't be well off. They'll be the kind of people who have difficulty making bail. The kind of people who can't afford a lawyer. Possibly the kind of people who believed they wouldn't get caught (dumb...).

The kind of people that only the ACLU tends to try to protect.

This is going to be bad.

[burrowowl]

48. May Sessions be arrested

and put in jail for a long, long time!
Who is paying him, private prison lobbyists?