Rand Paul begins forceful pitch in campaign against federal mandatory minimums

I suspect that US Attorney General Eric Holder and US Senator Rand Paul do not have the same position on a lot of different issues.  And yet, today in the post right after this post covering a big speech by AG Holder in which he suggests exploring ways "to give judges more flexibility in determining certain sentences," I get to highlight this new op-ed in the Washington Times by Senator Paul which assails federal minimum sentencing laws for taking sentencing authority "away from the jury and judge."

I urge everyone to read Senator Paul's op-ed in full, and here are just a few passages that prompted me to find and post the picture that accompanies this posting:

Mandatory minimums reflect two of the biggest problems in Washington: The first problem is the idea that there should be a Washington-knows-best, one-size-fits-all approach to all problems, be they social, educational or criminal. This approach leads to our second problem: Washington’s habit of undermining the system our Founding Fathers created. Their system left as much power as possible in the hands of local and state officials, and sought to treat people as individuals, not as groups or classes of people.

Last year in my community, a family lost one of their sons to an overdose. They almost lost their other son to a mandatory minimum sentencing. Federal law requires a mandatory 20-year sentence if a death occurs, even an accidental one. If prosecutors had charged the surviving brother in federal court, he would have received a mandatory 20-year sentence.

When a crime is committed, it should fall to the local prosecutor, judge and jury to determine the guilt or innocence, as well as determine the just punishment for the crime. In the current system of federal mandatory-minimum sentencing, the authority is taken away from the jury and judge, and given by the legislature to the executive. Prosecutors already have tremendous power because they collect the evidence and choose which crimes to charge. If a mandatory penalty is attached to that crime, the prosecutor then exerts much influence over the entire procedure, including the sentence.

Our Founding Fathers went to great lengths to prevent the executive and prosecutors from obtaining too much power. The Fourth Amendment was written to stop overzealous searches, and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments were written to establish full due process as an inalienable right.

Ignoring these rights comes with several tangible costs. In the last 30 years, the number of federal inmates has increased from 25,000 to nearly 219,000. That is nearly a 10-fold increase in federal prisoners, each of whom cost the taxpayers $29,027 a year to incarcerate. The federal prison budget has doubled in 10 years to more than $6 billion.

Half of the people sentenced to federal prison are drug offenders. Some are simply drug addicts, who would be better served in a treatment facility. Most are nonviolent and should be punished in ways that do not require spending decades in a federal prison, with meals and health care provided by the taxpayers.

For these reasons and others, last week I joined my colleague Sen. Patrick Leahy, Vermont Democrat, in introducing a bill that would authorize judges to disregard federal mandatory-minimum sentencing on a case-by-case basis.

Some might think it is unusual for a conservative Republican to join a liberal Democrat on such a bill, but contrary to popular belief, the protection of civil liberties and adherence to the Constitution should be a bipartisan effort....

I will speak more about this in a speech I am giving at Howard University on April 10.  I hope to engage conservatives and liberals in a discussion of how the federal government should handle mandatory minimums and the reforms needed to secure our Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights.  How much of our liberty are we willing to yield to the government in the name of a false sense security?  This is a debate that crosses many issues, and deserves full and fair exploration.

Ever the sentencing geek, I am already giddy in anticipation concerning Senator Paul's upcoming speech on these issues at Howard University. The setting is notable in part because way back in 2007, as blogged here and here, then-Senator Obama gave a big speech about the need for federal criminal justice reforms.   I would be foolish to assert that talking the talk about criminal justice at Howard University is a key step toward becoming US President, but I do not think it is foolish to assert that Rand Paul has (in my view, wisely) perhaps figured out that it may be politically valuable to speak forcefully and in constitutional terms about the need for significant federal criminal justice reform.

Some recent and older related posts:

• "Bipartisan Legislation To Give Judges More Flexibility For Federal Sentences Introduced"
• Could Romney appeal to independents and minorities with bold crime and punishment vision?
• "Right on Crime: The Conservative Case for Reform" officially launches
• "NAACP, right-wing foes get friendly" when it comes to prison costs
• "Conservatives latch onto prison reform"
• NAACP head recognizes Tea Party favors some progressive criminal justice reforms (and sometimes more than Democrats)