Justice department to ignore mandatory minimum sentences for some drug offenders

Actually, the plan would direct U.S. attorneys to change guidelines as to when they would charge individuals of certain drug crimes the Obama administration thinks are racist, and/or have unreasonable mandatory minimum sentences. The proposal would unilaterally raise the bar as to what offenses would result in federal charges. Silly me, I thought the Legislative Branch of the government was supposed to write the rules and the Executive Branch was supposed to implement them, not change policy to avoid implementing them.

I want to start off this post with some common sense. If you don’t like the war on drugs and think the mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses at the state or federal level are ridiculous – or even racist – campaign your state and federal congress-critters to change the laws. Second, if you really think there are 20 year-old kids in federal or state prison on a mandatory minimum sentence for smoking a little weed at a concert or even on an elementary school playground, find me that case. It just doesn’t happen.

With no doubt, I do believe prosecutors should have a level of prosecutorial discretion, but the Obama administration has now become an expert at twisting federal law to change the intent and will of the people in bulk by “just saying no” to prosecutions. From the Washington Post, with my emphasis in bold.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is set to announce Monday that low-level, nonviolent drug offenders with no ties to gangs or large-scale drug organizations will no longer be charged with offenses that impose severe mandatory sentences.

In other words, the Obama administration thinks the people (Congress) don’t know what they are doing when it comes to drug offense sentencing guidelines and they are going to help out by refusing to prosecute certain crimes. They will simply ignore the law.

Sounds a lot like how they are dealing with illegal alien laws, the border fence and other signed-into-law legislation huh?

“A vicious cycle of poverty, criminality and incarceration traps too many Americans and weakens too many communities,” Holder plans to say Monday, ­according to excerpts of his ­remarks that were provided to The Washington Post. “However, many aspects of our criminal justice system may actually exacerbate this problem rather than alleviate it.”

Holder is calling for a change in Justice Department policies to reserve the most severe penalties for drug offenses for serious, high-level or violent drug traffickers. He has directed his 94 U.S. attorneys across the country to develop specific, locally tailored guidelines for determining when federal charges should be filed and when they should not.

“Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long and for no good law enforcement reason,” Holder plans to say. “We cannot simply prosecute or incarcerate our way to becoming a safer nation.”

These statements are all code-words for racism. Holder will certainly mention the possession of five grams of crack compared to 500 grams of powder cocaine, which have the same mandatory minimum sentence. You know, “rich white people snort powder and the poor black children can only afford crack.” The laws are racist so Holder does not want to enforce them any more. Of course – if asked – Holder will certainly be able to come up with unique, outlier cases that demonstrate his hypothesis, but again, it’s not his job to change the law, he must enforce it.

Again, the solution here – if there is a problem – is to change the law, not just enforce only the laws the Obama administration likes.

Holder will bring up statistics about how many people are cycled through American prisons. He’ll mention we are only 5 percent of the world’s population, but almost 25 percent of the world’s prisoners are in U.S. jails. So what? Those statistics on their own have nothing to do with nothing. Holder will use statistics instead of real-life examples because he knows the American people may have little sympathy for a 19 year-old who was convicted of manufacturing and selling meth to high school kids and serving five years for it.