Jeff Sessions plays politics with justice

Jeff Beauregard Sessions was narrowly confirmed recently as Trump's choice for attorney general of the United States. As the foundational policy message of his term, "Maximum Jeff" has instructed the 94 regional U.S. attorneys to pick the maximum offense and maximum term of sentence in administering criminal justice.

Maximum Jeff, a lawyer who has spent most of his life running for office, seems to be stuck with the best candidate's policy: "I am tougher on crime than any opponent." But Jeff is no longer running — or is he?  What he also probably understands, but doesn't care enough about, is the damage to the court system, to the national budget, to his department budget and to American society that he is inflicting.

Over the past few decades, the prosecutor's power has overwhelmed the judicial role. Rather like English royalty, the judges, as revered as ever, just sign stuff. The power has gone to the prosecutor because legislation broadening the definitions of criminal behavior and standardizing sentencing has made him or her the decider. The prosecutor has the charging power and makes all the plea deals, disposing of approximately 95 percent of criminal cases.

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When Jeff Sessions says his boys will always go for the max, he is setting the stage for an unjustifiable increase in prison populations. America already holds more people in prisons than any country in the world, including Russia and China. Jeff's friends in the private prison industry must be overjoyed.

A jam-up in the court system is also on its way, because defense attorneys will take their chances with a jury rather than plea bargain against new "take it or leave it" offers from the U.S. attorney.

Historically, judges have been important in the criminal justice system not just for their role in managing trials but for their wisdom in gauging the true seriousness of the offense and the societal risk posed by the offender.  Less so today. Appropriate justice for the offender is largely in the hands of the prosecutor.

Maximum Jeff praises his new policy because it "produces consistency." Applying a few sentences in a criminal code to cover the complexities of specific human behavior, without compassionate measure, produces inconsistent justice.

Some years ago, a study of Alaska sentencing practices showed that people of color, otherwise totally comparable, were getting higher sentences. The judges promptly adjusted their behavior so that white defendants were getting the same higher sentences. That produced consistency, all right. Wouldn't it have produced a result with more justice if the sentencing of people of color had come down to the more precisely measured sentences of whites?

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A spectacular example of the nonsense resulting from mindless sentencing mechanics has just been documented by Alaska Dispatch News columnist Charles Wohlforth. An outlier to a murder involving many participants is still in prison while all the rest are long out.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has now taken steps that run contrary to the advice of contemporary criminology, a path that many states are now following, if with varying degrees of energy. Why?

First of all, Jeff Sessions is deeply embedded in politics. After a run as assistant U.S. attorney, he ran for attorney general of Alabama, his lifetime and generational home state. Be grateful Alaska's attorney general is appointed. Jeff was an early supporter of Donald Trump and now appears to have no concern about following presidential directions in the firing of an FBI chief who has been heading an investigation of possible treasonous behavior by Trump's closest associates, and maybe the president himself. Jeff apparently had no scruples requiring that he sequester himself from behavior with which he was also associated.

A background point here is of some significance. Jeff Sessions grew up in a deeply racially prejudiced environment. His middle name reflects his family's admiration for Confederate Civil War Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard.

Perhaps there is no requirement that a person have a record of standing up for civil rights in times of historic change, no imitation of Atticus Finch's role in "To Kill a Mockingbird." Though Jeff Sessions has no serious personal record of racism, he has no record of youthful rebellion, either. He presided over Alabama's criminal justice system when criminal behavior by black people was a notorious priority. Life sentences and the death penalty are common among Southern states with a high Afro-American population, including Alabama.

Here in Alaska, the first jurisdiction to pass a comprehensive anti-discrimination law, it behooves us to watch carefully the behavior of the U.S. attorney's office and for our federal judges to guard jealously their power.

John Havelock is a former Alaska attorney general and former professior of justice at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com.