Federal drug prosecutions have dropped, Attorney General Eric Holder disclosed Tuesday in a valedictory speech that foreshadowed some Capitol Hill fights awaiting his designated successor.
With the Justice Department now steering prosecutors away from nonviolent, low-level drug offenses, the overall number of federal drug prosecutions dropped 6 percent between 2013 and 2014; from 22,215 to 20,824. Holder called the decrease a success.
“Not every case should be brought in federal court,” Holder said in a speech at the National Press Club, adding that “our prosecutors are focusing their attention, and their resources, on the most serious cases.”
Federal prosecutors have also eased up on harsh mandatory minimum sentences, Holder disclosed. Since his “ Smart on Crime” initiative began in August 2013, he said, prosecutors filed charges that carried a mandatory minimum in 51 percent of the drug cases. In prior years, mandatory minimum sentences were sought in about 64 percent of federal drug cases.
“This figure, perhaps more than any other, shows the significant impact that our policy reforms are having,” Holder said. “These are extremely encouraging results.”
The attorney general’s hour-long appearance is likely to be one of his last big public presentations in his current position. His focus on sentencing and criminal justice reform underscored where he thinks his legacy might be as the nation’s 82nd chief law enforcement officer.
Loretta Lynch, Holder’s designated successor and currrently the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, now has her delayed Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation vote scheduled for next week. While some Republican lawmakers, including Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, publicly oppose her, and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, sought to actively block a vote, Lynch’s eventual confirmation appears all but certain.
Holder’s work, in the meantime, is not done. Several acutely sensitive decisions remain in the Justice Department pipeline, which Holder hopes to clear so Lynch can start with a clean desk.
Justice Department officials must decide whether to file civil rights charges against former Ferguson, Mo., Police Officer Darren Wilson for the shooting last summer of unarmed teenager Michael Brown. While civil rights charges have always appeared unlikely, because of the high legal burden facing prosecutors, they have not been formally ruled out.
A broader federal inquiry into the pattern and practice of behavior by the Ferguson Police Department begun last year is also unresolved. Holder said Tuesday he was briefed on both cases last week.
“My hope is I will be able to make those determinations before I go,” Holder said. “I am confident we will do that.”
The exact timing of his departure, Holder noted wryly, is up to the Republican-controlled Senate.
Also unresolved on Holder’s watch is a Justice Department investigation into the alleged disclosure of classified information by former CIA Director David Petraeus.
Holder’s own sentencing and criminal justice reform measures, meanwhile, will face continued resistance from some key Republican lawmakers.
The new Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, called bills to ease mandatory minimum sentences “lenient and frankly dangerous.” While allowing that he is “open to certain federal sentencing or prison reforms,” Grassley used a Feb. 12 speech of his own to set down markers.
“Be on notice and be on guard,” Grassley said. “Don’t let anyone tell you that federal mandatory minimum sentences are putting large numbers of nonviolent offenders in jail for long periods of time at great taxpayer expense.”
Eighty-six percent of federal drug possession cases in fiscal 2013 were brought against non-U.S. citizens, according to U.S. Sentencing Commission data cited by Grassley. He further stressed the value of tough mandatory minimum sentences as a lever to compel cooperation from defendants, helping prosecutors go after higher-ups.
After growing steadily for more than three decades, the federal prison population fell in fiscal 2014 for the first time in 32 years. Currently, there are about 210,000 federal prison inmates. More than 48 percent are serving time for drug offenses.
Legislation reintroduced in both the House of Representatives and the Senate last week would exempt more low-level defendants from mandatory minimum sentences and cut the assorted mandatory sentences in half; for instance, from 20 years to 10 years. The measures have some GOP support, from conservatives like Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., but the bills still face an uphill battle.
“We must be both strict and smart when it comes to federal criminal sentencing,” Labrador said last week. “The ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach Congress put on the books has tied the hands of judges without improving public safety.”