Unsurprisingly given his prior record as Attorney General and various statements on reform efforts past and present, folks in the criminal justice and drug policy reform community are not too keen of Prez Trump's decision to nominate William Barr to be the next US Attorney General. Here is an extended sampling of press releases and articles on this front:
From ACLU, " No Relief: William Barr Is as Bad as Jeff Sessions — if Not Worse "
From The Brennan Center, " William Barr Is Out of Step on Criminal Justice Reform "
From Drug Policy Alliance, " Barr Record on Drug War and Criminal Justice Reform is Appalling "
From FAMM, " FAMM Statement on the Nomination of William Barr for U.S. Attorney General "
From The Intercept , " Trump’s Pick For Attorney General Pushed For Military Strikes On Drug Traffickers, Questioned Asylum Law "
From Leafy, " What Trump’s New AG Pick Could Mean for Cannabis "
From Marijuana Moment , " Where Trump’s Pick For Attorney General Stands On Drug Policy "
From Quartz , " Trump nominee William Barr pushed for the death penalty to “send a message to drug dealers "
From Vox , " William Barr helped establish mass incarceration. Now Trump wants him as attorney general. "
Largely because of points made in these pieces, William Barr certainly was not the AG candidate I was rooting for. (Retired DC Circuit Judge Janice Rogers Brown was a name thrown out at one point that struck me as especially interesting.) But though I share many of the concerns expressed in the press releases and articles assembled above, I am also hoping and rooting that Barr's thinking on various crime and punishment issues may have evolved, at least a little bit, since his last stint as Attorney General a quarter century ago. Particularly given how a number of "tough on crime" defenders of mandatory minimums and other harsh federal sentencing laws have come around in just the last few years to be vocal advocates for reform (e.g., Representative James Sensenbrenner and Senator Charles Grassley), I am not prepared quite yet to fear that an AG Barr will be as bad or worse than an AG Sessions. But we will perhaps find out before too long.
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