We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.
TRUMP SAYS HE’LL OVERRULE SESSIONS ON SUPPORTING FIRST STEP
Anyone who remembers recent sentencing reform history will recall that when Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was a senator from Alabama, he led the charge against the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015. And last winter, Sessions infuriated Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) when he sent an open letter to the Committee telling it not to vote out the 2017 version of SRCA.
With Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) gun shy about bringing the compromise FIRST STEP Act to a vote if there is insufficient support, Sessions could be a real impediment to passage of sentencing and prison reform.
That’s why President Trump’s statement last Thursday that he would overrule Sessions if he tries to stymie efforts to overhaul the criminal justice system is so significant. In a wide-ranging interview on “Fox & Friends,” the President said he would shut down any Sessions opposition to congressional passage of the compromise FIRST STEP Act. “
When asked whether Sessions is standing in the way of criminal justice reform, Trump said the decision is not up to the attorney general. “He gets overruled by me,” Trump said. “I make the decision, he doesn’t.”
“We do need reform, and that doesn’t mean easy,” the president said during the 40-minute interview. “We’re going to make certain categories tougher when it comes to drug dealing and other things, but there has to be a reform because it is very unfair right now. It’s very unfair to African-Americans. It is very unfair to everybody, and it is also very costly.”
Sessions, a law-and-order candidate now in the doghouse with Trump over the Mueller Russia probe, played a role in successfully urging the president to put off action on criminal justice reform before the midterm elections. But Trump now seems to have made the issue a top priority, thanks in large measure to the advocacy of senior White House adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
“Jared Kushner has kept the president in the loop and today’s statements by the president are indicative that he’s interested in this issue and is the one that will make the final decision,” The Hill quoted a person it said was familiar with the discussion. Kushner reportedly briefs Trump regularly on the status of sentencing reform.
Trump’s comments came just before he had lunch with the rapper Kanye West and former Cleveland Browns star Jim Brown, who are expected to urge Trump to move forward with sentencing and prison reforms.
Last June, West’s wife, Kim Kardashian persuaded Trump to commute the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a 63-year-old grandmother who was serving a life sentence for a first-time drug offense committed in the early 1990s.
Trump said Kardashian “brought the attention to Mrs. Johnson” and said it was unfair that she received such a long sentence.
The Hill, Trump: I’ll overrule Sessions on criminal justice reform (Oct. 11, 2018)
Politico, Trump: ‘I make the decision’ on prison reform, not Sessions’ (Oct. 11, 2018)
– Thomas L. Root