Some notable first-cut reactions to the Sessions Memo
The Hill already has two articles reporting on some notable reactions to the new Sessions Memo. The reactions are not surprising, but they are still interesting:
Obama AG slams Sessions for shift to harsher sentencing
GOP senator: Sessions’s push for tougher sentences highlights ‘injustice’
Eric Holder is the AG referenced in the headline of the first article, and Senator Rand Paul is the one referenced in the headline of the second one. Senators Mike Lee and Tom Cotton also are quoted in the second article, and long time readers of this blog can likely guess the nature of their takes on the Sessions Memo.
Last but certainly not least, Bill Otis has reactions here at Crime & Consequences under the heading “Jeff Sessions Returns DOJ to Sound Charging Policy.” Here are choice excerpts (emphasis in original):
This has been reported as “new” guidance, but it’s not. It’s the return of the “most serious readily provable” standard that governed charging policy during most of my 18-year tenure in the US Attorney’s Office, a tenure that ended last century. The policy continued during the George W. Bush Administration.
It was right then and it’s right now. It amounts to telling prosecutors to charge what the defendant actually did. This is so obviously correct — aligning the allegations with the facts — that I have a hard time seeing any serious objection to it.
It does allow exceptions — that is, in practice, more lenient charging — in unusual cases. That too seems obviously correct, together with the Attorney General’s caveat that such cases must, indeed, be out of the heartland, and the reasons for leniency should be documented and approved by a more senior AUSA or the USA himself. This prevents inattentive, inexperienced or irresolute AUSA’s from doing their own thing (or being bullrushed by an aggressive or smooth-talking defense lawyer).
On its face, this policy is not that much of a change from the one Eric Holder adopted, but there is an important change in emphasis and purpose….
It will be attacked by the Left as likely to produce longer sentences. That’s probably so. However, there is a ready mechanism by which such sentences can be avoided: Mr. Nicey might consider quitting the smack business and getting a normal job like everybody else. I’m just not a partisan of the notion that it’s always the public that has to change. Instead, in both practical and moral senses, we’ll be better off when we insist that it’s the criminal who has to change. We don’t need less serious charging. We need less crime.
Criminals make choices. We should give them enhanced incentives to make better ones, for them and for us. The Attorney General’s directive does just that.
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