Posted on 07/11/2021 4:56:52 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
President Biden is under pressure to expand his criminal justice reform efforts to include the dozens of U.S. attorney offices across the country that prosecute federal crimes.
Advocates have applauded Biden's criminal justice agenda, such as his plans to increase the number of former public defenders on the federal bench, but stress that the same priorities should be applied when selecting prosecutors to oversee the country's 93 districts.
Rachel Barkow, a professor at the New York University School of Law, says that because of the power that prosecutors wield, Biden’s appointments could make or break his reform agenda.
“It wouldn't be enough to just focus on the courts as the place where you're committed to diversifying and getting a reform minded perspective in there,” Barkow said. “You absolutely have to have the same attitude when it comes to the U.S. attorneys’ posts.”
“You can't have a reform agenda, like the one that you committed to on the campaign trail, if you don't have people in those offices who are going to carry that out,” she added.
With more and more cities electing progressive district attorneys who campaigned on reducing mass incarceration, reformers are pushing Biden to follow suit and pick a new breed of federal prosecutors.
In March, a coalition of advocacy groups sent a letter to Biden calling on him to nominate federal prosecutors “capable of delivering fair sentencing, rearranging prosecutorial priorities and rooting out misconduct.”
Administrations of both parties have historically tapped career prosecutors and attorneys from prestigious law firms to fill U.S. attorney positions around the country, a trend that critics argue has cemented a tough-on-crime culture that is increasingly at odds with the nation’s evolving views on criminal justice.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Joe’s under pressure half the time to even know his own name.
Exactly! Why does he need to add Public Defenders if they are gonna stop arresting real criminals?
Worse yet the DNC.
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