Posted on 04/24/2014 1:42:57 PM PDT by jazusamo
As President Obama prepares to use his executive power to release thousands of felons (serving time under “racist” drug sentences) the Justice Department’s top official in charge of pardons quits rather than let criminals out of jail.
At least someone at the agency charged with enforcing the law and providing federal leadership in controlling crime, has some scruples. Of course, the official statement on the abrupt resignation of the Department of Justice (DOJ) Pardon Attorney, Ron Rodgers, is that he suddenly requested reassignment after heading the division for six years. One newswire story quotes a DOJ Deputy Attorney General saying that Rodgers’ departure is “in the tradition” of senior executive service attorneys who ask for reassignment.
The facts tell a different story. As head of the DOJ’s Pardons Office Rodgers clashed with the Obama administration over a controversial plan to release—or reduce the sentences of—convicted drug offenders. It’s part of the president’s effort to end racial discrimination in drug-related sentences. It started with the 2010 signing of a law ( Fair Sentencing Act) that for the first time in decades relaxed drug-crime sentences he claims discriminate against minority offenders. The measure severely weakens a decades-old law enacted during the infamous crack cocaine epidemic that ravaged urban communities nationwide in the 1980s.
But the Fair Sentencing Act is not retroactive so the president launched a broad plan this month to help those sentenced under the older, stricter law which required mandatory prison for first-time offenders and a five-year sentence for trafficking offenses involving more than five grams of crack cocaine. This punished a disproportionate number of blacks, the administration says, compared to more affluent whites and Hispanics that enjoy lighter sentences for possessing the more expensive powder cocaine that most blacks can’t afford.
So this week Attorney General Eric Holder announced a new DOJ clemency initiative that’s expected to free thousands of prisoners serving time for crimes related to crack cocaine. The agency expects to get bombarded with petitions, Holder said in a video posted on the DOJ website, and will assign dozens of new attorneys to its pardon office, which is now headed by an Obama team player named Deborah Leff. The clemencies will “restore a degree of justice, fairness and proportionality,” Holder said, adding that the DOJ is “committed to recommending as many qualified applicants as possible for reduced sentences.”
More than 20,000 inmates “sentenced under the old regime” will likely qualify for clemency, according to Deputy Attorney General James Cole, who held a press conference this week to announce the initiative. “For our criminal justice system to be effective, it needs to not only be fair; but it also must be perceived as being fair,” Cole said. “Older, stringent punishments that are out of line with sentences imposed under today’s laws erode people’s confidence in our criminal justice system, and I am confident that this initiative will go far to promote the most fundamental of American ideals – equal justice under law.”
With that said, here’s an interesting tidbit related to this story. One of the federal lawmakers (California Congresswoman Maxine Waters) that for years pushed to reduce drug sentences over racial disparities accused the CIA of selling crack cocaine to blacks in her south central Los Angeles district to raise money to support clandestine operations in Latin America, including a guerrilla army. Waters and her buddy, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, were driving forces behind the Fair Sentencing Act and are undoubtedly celebrating the new clemency criteria.
“Those who are kind to the cruel are soon cruel to the kind..”
Yes:
Jailing ranchers, freeing drug-dealers.
this is retroactive sentencing. just as wrong as retroactive taxes. if it were to be done for innocent people shafted by unjust laws that’s another matter entirely. these people weren’t little innocents.
Mr. Holder was scheduled to deliver remarks at the graduation ceremony at 2:30 p.m. ET, according to his official itinerary sent out by the Justice Department Thursday morning."
Fundamental transformation indeed!
So he didn’t actually resign. He requested reassignment; so they still have their hooks in him and he can’t talk.
Exactly, and these felons in federal prison for the most part are not common users, counties and states prosecute them. These people are pushers, suppliers and importers and deserve no clemency.
And if these “disproportionally minority” convicted drug dealing felons are released, they will most likely go right back to their neighborhoods and start if all over.
Then the “minority neighborhoods” will start complaining louder about the crime in their neighborhood; never connecting the events.
This is doing no one a favor.
It seems so...Too bad he didn’t resign or retire like Christian Adams and speak out on this corrupt DOJ.
“After over 2,000 petition signatures by students, Michelle Obama has been forced to cancel her graduation speech in Topeka Unified School District 501. “
The IRS is filling out his audit papers as we type.
Hey...look at me...I was doing coke and dealing and I became President.
One of the problems with the mandatory minimums passed by the Feds in the 1980s is that although they justified it as a way to get the big drug kingpins off the streets for a very long time, they failed miserably at that. Most of these offenders are on the low end of the hierarchy so I see it as just another failed government program. Indeed, the number of people in Federal prison has increased by a magnitude of 10 since the 80s (from 20,000 to 200,000).
She’s still semi involved I guess. Wonder if the schools can get their original reservation dates back.
http://www.wibw.com/home/headlines/256542131.html
Yep, and he sneers. Little wonder decent people throughout the world despise him and adversaries ignore or laugh at him.
That cuts both ways, Zero.
How did someone with honor end up in the Obama administration?
I think she did get a strong message though.
I’d guess he’s not a political appointee and was a holdover from pre 0bummer/Holder.
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