Talk About Killing Drug Dealers Crowds Out Talk About Reforming Their Sentences – Update for March 30, 2018 | Legal Information Services Associates LLC

We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

QUIET COUPLE OF WEEKS ON SENTENCING AND PRISON REFORM

President Trump turned the criminal justice legislative front on its head last week with his call to execute drug traffickers. That’s already the law (although Trump appears not to know that), although it is a law which the Dept. of Justice has not used until now because of its questionable constitutionality. Nevertheless, little was done last week on the sentencing or prison reform issues in front of Congress.

Reps. Doug Collins (R-Georgia) and Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) did report last week that the House Judiciary Committee will mark up their legislation, H.R. 3356, the Prison Reform and Redemption Act, after Congress returns from its Easter break in April, with a full vote expected soon after. The PRRA focuses on rehabilitation and job training ahead of an inmate’s release from federal prison, and provides good-time incentives for prisoners to enroll in programs that have a proven track record by establishing a post-sentencing risk-and-needs assessment.

Last week, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights wrote to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) on behalf of 59 criminal justice, human rights, and faith-based organizations, to oppose effort to pass S.1994, the CORRECTIONS Act of 2017, which addresses prison reform without doing anything to include sentencing reform (or “front end” reform). “Any legislation that addresses only back end reforms.” The organizations said, “is doomed to fail in achieving these goals. Without changes to sentencing laws that eliminate mandatory minimums, restore judicial discretion, reduce the national prison population, and mitigate disparate impacts on communities of color, S.1994 alone will have little impact.”