Attorney general Eric Holder made a major speech at the annual American Bar Association conference. He said in part, “I have mandated a modification of the Justice Department’s charging policies so that certain low-level, nonviolent drug offenders who have no ties to large-scale organizations, gangs, or cartels, will no longer be charged with offenses that impose draconian mandatory minimum sentences.”
The Attorney General called for a plan to create a slate of local guidelines to determine if cases should be subject to federal charges. In his speech the Attorney General pointed to the bipartisan backing of such goals in Congress, where there is “legislation aimed at giving federal judges more discretion in applying mandatory minimums to certain drug offenders.”
For the most part there has been support for the Attorney General’s new initiative. Judge Kevin Burke was interviewed about his thoughts by Dan Barrerio. The clip can be found at 14.40:
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