OBAMA AG PICK TO DO 'EVEN MORE' THAN HOLDER
Pledges to expand use of Department of Justice to improve 'human rights'
Brooklyn-based federal prosecutor Loretta Lynch, President Obama’s pick to become the next attorney general, is a big fan of Eric Holder’s reforms to the criminal justice system , recently pledging to do “even more,” WND has found.
In remarks she made at a legal convention in August, Lynch lauded Holder’s creation of a Racial Disparities Working Group, which she said was aimed at identifying policies that result in “unwarranted disparities within criminal justice and to eliminate those disparities as quickly as possible.”
Lynch continued: “From the reduction of the use of solitary confinement, to the expansion of the federal clemency program, to our support for the retroactive reduction of penalties for non-violent drug offenders to the reduction in the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, we have worked to improve our criminal justice system in furtherance of our human-rights treaty obligations.
“We look forward to the future and the opportunity to do even more,” Lynch added.
She expressed support, for example, of Holder’s drive to restore voting rights to convicted felons.
In April, the Justice Department announced six new guidelines for presidential pardon that will drastically broaden the number of those eligible among the prison population of non-violent offenders.
The new guidelines will make it easier to pardon offenders convicted of long drug offenses under laws that were stricter at the time of conviction.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole told reporters the new guidelines will focus on shortening sentences for those imprisoned under previous rules that saw little disparity between powdered cocaine and crack cocaine.
In 2010, Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which lowered the amount of crack and powdered cocaine that would violate federal law from a 100:1 weight ratio to 18:1 while eliminating a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for possession of crack cocaine.
Lynch made her remarks at the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
Lynch was appointed by Obama in 2010 to the position of U.S. attorney for Eastern New York, which covers Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island.
At the time, Lynch was overwhelmingly approved. However, GOP aids told CNN on Friday they didn’t know that much about her.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/11/obama-ag-pick-to-doeven-more-than-holder/#WCSzJhhURuITJpuL.99
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