When President Donald Trump appointed Jeff Sessions as the United States Attorney General, it was widely believed that Sessions would signal a return to “draconian” sentencing practices and criminal charges of the past. It did not take long for these fears to be realized.
Recently, Sessions issued a memo to U.S. attorneys stating that prosecutors should attempt to charge criminals with the most severe crimes and the most severe sentences possible.
This memo from Sessions represents a profound step backward, in critics’ views, from the progress that has been made in recent years regarding reform in the American criminal justice system. Efforts have been made on both sides of the political aisle to overhaul most of the outdated mandates of the current criminal justice system.
The memo also reverses the stance taken during the Obama administration that non-violent drug offenses should receive lower penalties.
Sessions Targets Drug Offenders
Sessions issued his memo on March of 2017, stating that his primary targets are reducing gang violence, gun-related crimes and drug dealings. According to the memo, Sessions believes that violent crime is a side-effect of drug trafficking and the illegality of the organizations that traffic the drugs.
His logic is that reducing violent crime is best accomplished by enacting more severe punishments for drug-related crimes. Critics counter that it’s like saying that jaywalkers need to be prosecuted to prevent hit-and-runs.
Under Sessions’ memo, prosecutors are ordered to seek the most readily provable and serious offense. This also applies to non-violent drug crimes of the lowest level.
Draconian Criminal Policy
Criminal law has changed quite a bit in the years since George W. Bush was elected President of the United States. At the time, Bush appointed John Ashcroft to be the Attorney General. Ashcroft enacted a series of crackdowns on criminal justice that were seen as quite extreme at the time.
The recent memo issued by Sessions points to an even more harsh proposed solution to the problem of drug trafficking.
In many cases, bipartisan efforts have been made in Congress and by states to overhaul state-level justice systems. States that have experimented with new systems have reported immense success.
Many wonder if Sessions’ return to harsh criminal policies will be ignored by prosecutors at the state level since the final decision on charges comes down to the individual U.S. Attorneys.
The wording of the memo, however, is such that it could free prosecutors to go for sentences above what is truly required or recommended.
Case-by-Case Analysis
During the Obama administration, then-Attorney General Eric Holder issued a memo that instructed prosecutors to take individual scenarios into account when dealing with drug offenses.
The goal behind Holder’s memo was to alleviate the growing prison population in the United States, much of which is made up of criminals whose only crime is related to non-violent drug offenses, which are usually cannabis-based. Holder thought that non-violent drug defendants with little criminal background and no connection to legitimate drug cartels should be afforded less severe charges and penalties.
According to Holder, these new policies issued by Sessions will do nothing but return the criminal justice system to the ruinous state it was in when it focused more on incarcerating people than on investigating and preventing crime.
Many have said that such a vague description of how to deal with exceptions will lead prosecutors to forgo asking for them.
Harsher Sentencing Makes Defense Lawyers Necessary
Those who are facing criminal charges related to drug offenses or any other criminal activity should contact a drug crime defense attorney who will work for them. Only with the help of a qualified lawyer can you fight for your rights against these harsh new sentencing policies.