It\u2019s hard to think of anything new and clever to say about how bad the\u00a0Biden administration\u00a0is on public safety issues, but it must be said.
\nOn December 16, 2022, Merrick Garland of the Biden Justice Department issued a memorandum to all federal prosecutors entitled, “Additional Department Policies Regarding Charging, Pleas, and Sentencing in Drug Cases.”
\nIn the memo, Garland directs his line attorneys across the country to try to avoid charging offenders with crimes that carry mandatory minimums\u2014especially when the underlying crimes are drug crimes. His reasoning? “The perceived and actual racial disparities in the criminal justice system.”
\nThis reckless rhetoric, pushed by Obama and Biden, has made our country a far more dangerous place to live.
\nFrom 2003 to 2010, the\u00a0U.S. Department of Justice\u00a0maintained a policy that federal prosecutors “must charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense or offenses that are supported by the facts of the case.” But in May of 2010, Eric Holder\u2014our second most radical U.S. Attorney General\u2014changed that policy, explaining that “equal justice depends on individualized justice” and that prosecutors must undergo an “individualized assessment” of the defendant before pursuing the most serious provable offense. In 2017, Jeff Sessions sensibly returned the Department to the Ashcroft-era policy.
\nDiscarding 35 years of determinate sentencing under the federal guidelines,\u00a0Merrick Garland\u00a0has now directed the entire federal prosecutorial ranks to embrace what Dr. Thomas Sowell called the “disparate impact racket.”
\nThe worst part of it is, those whom Obama and Biden claim to be looking out for have paid the heaviest price when it comes to their safety. As\u00a0Vice President Kamala Harris\u00a0recently observed, “black people are 13% of America\u2019s population, but make up 62% of America\u2019s homicide victims.” A report by the national Center for Victim Research found that “the overall risk of violent victimization is highest among persons who are younger, male, black, living in the poorest households, and living in urban areas.”
\nAnd make no mistake, drug crime\u00a0is\u00a0violent crime.
\nEven in Alabama, fentanyl and other opioids are ranked as the second-greatest contributor to\u2002violent crime and property crime\u2014and they\u2019re not even being produced here. According to Alabama\u2019s most recent drug-threat assessment, Black drug-trafficking organizations are primarily responsible for the wholesale and retail distribution of fentanyl here, while White drug-trafficking organizations play an equal role in transporting it throughout our state.
\nSelective application of mandatory minimums based on skin color is simply untenable when the goal is to stop the loss of life. Last fall, a 16-year-old male died of a\u00a0fentanyl overdose\u2002at Selma High School\u2014should the race of the dealer\u00a0really\u00a0be considered when it comes to the punishment for that tragedy?
\nAlabama\u2019s federal prosecutors, just like its state and local prosecutors, know what is going on in their communities. They must have the autonomy, along with their task force officers and agents, to manage their cases as they see fit. Undermining the work of\u00a0federal law enforcement\u2014tasked with removing predatory and repeat offenders from our communities\u2014only emboldens the criminal element.
\nThe bad guys know what lands you in the federal penitentiary and exactly how much time you\u2019ll serve, and that certainty is both an effective deterrent and a reason to cooperate. The dilution of that certainty also undermines the cooperative partnerships between\u00a0federal, state, and local law enforcement, as so often, states look to federal prosecutors to help ensure that someone is taken off the streets for a significant period and sent far away from home.
\nMerrick Garland will have long departed the DOJ by the time the real-life consequences of his catastrophic policies begin to show up in the\u2002crime data. It will be up to the states, that he has so little regard for, to clean up his mess.<\/p>\n