Mediaboss Marketing

Trayvon Martin. Michael Brown. Eric Garner. The names of unarmed black men killed by police in recent years are etched in the consciousness of people in the U.S. who might have believed that Eric Holder, the first ever African-American attorney general hired by the nations first black president, would affect sweeping changes in the ways minorities are treated by the American justice system. Holders six-year tenure as the top law enforcement official has been rocky -- he stands as the only member of President Barack Obamas cabinet to be held in contempt by a congressional committee and censured by House Republicans on issues unrelated to criminal justice and civil rights. That Holder, who announced his resignation last fall, will likely leave the administration without prosecuting a single well-known case of perceived police brutality is a disappointment for many, experts say, even though less-publicized law enforcement reforms have happened under his watch.

When so many thousands of people have asserted that black lives matter, the reluctance by the Justice Department to bring forward a case is more than disappointing, said Dan Berger, assistant professor of comparative ethnic studies at the University of Washington, Bothell. I dont want to put it all at his door, but I think [Holder] has not been as proactive or aggressive in pursuit of racial justice as many would have hoped he would be and that the rather dire circumstances mandate.

Recent reports indicate that the Justice Department is unlikely to bring federal charges against Darren Wilson, the now-former police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, who shot and killed the 18-year-old and unarmed Brown last August. Neither Holder nor another Justice Department official had made an official announcement about charges on Thursday.

Civil rights experts and some former colleagues have mostly praised Holder, who they say gets little credit for policy changes on racial profiling, war-on-drugs era policing, prison sentencing reforms and his recent work with local police departments where citizens report high rates of excessive force. Earlier this month, Holder called on law enforcement agencies to collect more data in cases of police shootings, calling it unacceptable that such data wasnt being tracked.

In December, Holder announced the expansion of Justice Department rules for racial profiling to prevent the FBI from considering race and ethnicity, as well as gender, national origin, religion, sexual orientation and gender identity when opening federal and national security cases. Also in December, Holder brokered an agreement with the Cleveland Police Department requiring an independent monitor to oversee reforms in the departments use of force policies, stemming from a number of high-profile use of force incidents and requests from the community and local government, according to the Justice Department.

The seeming surge of civil rights activity by Holder in the wake of decisions not to indict officers in Browns killing and in the chokehold death of Garner in Staten Island, New York, last year -- which sparked both peaceful and violent protests around the nation -- is anything but a knee-jerk reaction by the Justice Department, said Jon Greenbaum, chief counsel and senior deputy director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law. I think that is his record on civil rights will be one of, if not the most shining aspects of his legacy as attorney general -- its pretty broad when you look at it, said Greenbaum, who formerly worked as a Justice Department lawyer and had been in meetings with Holder.

Holders career and his outspokenness -- he infamously remarked that the U.S. was a nation of cowards on the issues of race -- suggest he is both direct and strategic. Holder was sworn in as the nations 82nd attorney general in February of 2009, after Obama announced his nomination in 2008.

Holder was not new to the Justice Department. In 1997, President Bill Clinton named him deputy attorney general. Before that, hed been a U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and an associate judge of the Superior Court in D.C. A native of New York City, Holder attended Columbia College and received his law degree there in 1976. While in law school, Holder was a clerk for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The NAACP next monthwill honor Holder with the Chairmans Award, during the 46th Image Awards.

Tanya Clay House, public policy director for the Lawyers' Committee, a Washington-based nonprofit that works on issues of racial discrimination and inequality of opportunity, said policy changes that the organization lobbied for had not come out of Holders office as quickly as they would have like. But there is a feeling that the Justice Department was moving mountains to bring about the needed changes, she said.

Holder also hasbeen praised for his work on voting rights. Early on, he equated voter ID laws creeping up in conservative states in the South with poll taxes from the Jim Crow era. Ahead of the 2012 presidential election, Holder filed court cases against voter ID laws in three states, including Texas, that eventually invalidated restrictions disproportionately affecting black, Latino and young voters.

Read the rest here:
What Is Eric Holder's Civil Rights Legacy? His Achievements Aren't Well Known, Experts Say

John Walsh (Andy Cross, Denver Post file photo)

Attorney General Eric Holder has appointed U.S. Attorney John Walsh of Colorado as chair of the national Attorney General's Advisory Committee.

Walsh replaces Attorney General-nominee Loretta E. Lynch, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. The AGAC was created in 1973 to serve as the voice of the U.S. Attorneys and to advise the attorney general on policy, management and operational issues impacting the offices of the U.S. Attorneys.

"I'm deeply honored that the Attorney General has asked me to serve as chair of this crucial advisory committee," Walsh said in a written statement. "And it is a great honor to represent the men and women of U.S. Attorney's Offices nationally, who work tirelessly every day to protect the American people and pursue justice in the courts."

Holder also appointed U.S. Attorney Richard S. Hartunian for the Northern District of New York to serve as vice chair. Both appointments are effective immediately.

Paul J. Fishman, the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey and former chairman of the AGAC, said the committee serves as a policy conduit both from the field where about 10,000 federal prosecutors and attorneys practice throughout the country to Washington D.C. and from Washington to the field.

"The Attorney General's Advisory Committee is the focal point for those matters to be discussed," Fishman said.

He said Walsh has huge experience as a prosecutor, is enormously respected among fellow U.S. Attorneys around the country, is a good administrator, is very articulate, reasonable and practical.

"He doesn't let his ego get in the way of doing a good job," Fishman said. "Most importantly he has the trust of Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch."

Walsh previously served on the AGAC from February 2011 to January 2013 as the chair of the Medical Marijuana Working Group and co-chair of the White Collar/Fraud Subcommittee.

Visit link:
U.S. Attorney John Walsh appointed chair of national group

Contrary to what you may have read recently, Attorney General Eric Holder did not put an end to civil forfeiture, a form of legalized theft in which the government takes property allegedly linked to crime without even charging the owner, let alone convicting him. Nor did Holder stop civil forfeiture by the federal government or by the Justice Department. He did not even eliminate the Justice Departments Equitable Sharing Program, which lets police dodge state limits on forfeiture. Instead Holder restricted part of that program: adoption, where a state or local law enforcement agency seizes an asset and then asks the Justice Department to pursue forfeiture under federal law. Holders reform was a step in the right direction, but not nearly as big a step as much of the press coverage implied.

In an order issued last Friday, Holder said adoption from now on will be limited to property that directly relates to public safety concerns, including firearms, ammunition, explosives, and property associated with child pornography. Judging from the DOJs new instructions to agencies seeking adoption, that list is exhaustive, and it notably does not include drug cases, which account for a large share of forfeitures. That is good news, since it means cops cannot seize cash or other property based on vague, unsubstantiated suspicions that it is somehow related to drug activity and then use adoption to keep up to 80 percent of the loot.

Attorney General Eric Holder (Image: USDOJ)

But cops still can do essentially the same thing if the seizure results from an investigation assisted by or coordinated with federal authorities. Thats a big loophole, especially since there are hundreds of federally subsidized drug task forces across the country, composed of local cops who are often deputized as federal agents. As virtually every drug task force I know of has a federalliaisonon call, saysEapen Thampy, executive director ofAmericans for Forfeiture Reform, this means business as usual [for] local law enforcement using civil asset forfeiturethrough the Equitable Sharing Program to enforce the Controlled Substances Act and other federal statutes. In other words, the exception swallows the rule.

Holders order also explicitly exempts seizures pursuant to federal seizure warrants, obtainedfrom federal courts to take custody of assets originally seized under state law. Brenda Grantland, a California attorney who specializes in forfeiture cases, says that means if a federal prosecutor really wants to adopt a state seizure, he can just ask the federal judge to approve a federal seizure warrant.

Provided there is some sort of coordination, federal participation, or post-hoc judicial approval, these forfeitures are not considered adoptions. But they have a similar effect, allowing local agencies to take advantage of federal forfeiture law, which requires less evidence and lets cops keep a bigger share of the loot than many state laws do. In fact, the seizuresthat are not covered by Holders new policy account for the vast majority of the money that state and local agencies get from federal forfeituressomething like 86 percent, judging from the Justice Departments numbers for fiscal years 2008 through 2013. Similarly, a2012 reportfrom the Government Accountability Office noted that adoptions made up about 17 percent of all equitable sharing payments in 2010.

Robert Morris, an attorney who blogs at Hammer of Truth, argues that such numbers, which reflect the dollar value of seizures, understate the impact of Holders reform, since they do not tell us how many cases qualify as adoptions. If adoptions tend to be worth less than the other forfeitures in the Equitable Sharing Program, they may account for a larger percentage of cases than the dollar figures suggest. Morris says cautious excitement is the appropriate response to the new DOJ policy.

There was a lot of excitement after the DOJ announced its new policy but not much caution. The Washington Post, which broke the story, reported that Holder had barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without warrants or criminal charges, leaving the impression that equitable sharing had been eliminated rather than pared back. The Post, which recently has done an excellent job of highlighting forfeiture abuses, said the new policy would eliminate virtually all cash and vehicle seizures made by local and state police from the [equitable sharing] program. The Postdid note, deep in the story, that Holder said equitable sharing would continue in cases where local and federal authorities are collaborating. But it said most of the money and property taken under Equitable Sharing since 2008was not seized in collaboration with federal authorities, which is the opposite of what the departments numbers indicate.

Read the original:
Despite Holder's Forfeiture Reform, Cops Still Have A License To Steal

1/11/15
Gloria Borger hosts today #39;s State of the Union.The latest on the Charlie Hebdo terror attack in Paris. And, Attorney General Eric Holder; Sen. John McCain, C...

By: CNNNewsEps

Read the original:
1/11/15 - Video

Mayor Nutter responds to lack of Latino representation in roundtable with Eric Holder in Philly
U.S. General Attorney Obama Eric Holder visited Philadelphia Thursday to hold a roundtable on building trust between law enforcement and the communities they...

By: AL DA News Media

See the original post here:
Mayor Nutter responds to lack of Latino representation in roundtable with Eric Holder in Philly - Video