Eric Holder to reform US drug sentences in major policy shift [View all]

[babylonsister]

Eric Holder to reform US drug sentences in major policy shift

Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to announce a major shift in criminal justice drug policy on Monday in a speech at the American Bar Association’s meeting in San Francisco.


Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to alter criminal justice drug policy on Monday as part of a major reform package intended to reduce the ever-increasing federal prison population.

In a watershed speech Monday at the American Bar Association in San Francisco, Holder is expected to curb severe drug-related minimum mandatory sentences, a controversial law that has contributed to a startling statistic: the United States, with five percent of the world's population, houses 25 percent its prisoners.

"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," Holder will say, according to advance excerpts from his speech.

That means federal prosecutors can exclude in their indictments the quantities of illegal substances confiscated, which is how minimum mandatory sentences are decided. The law won't be changed and the quantity will still help determine a sentence. But the move will allow judges and lawyers to sidestep the strict federal laws.

"Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long and for no good law enforcement reason," Holder is expected to say. "We cannot simply prosecute or incarcerate our way to becoming a safer nation."

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http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/130812/holder-reform-us-drug-sentences