Six weeks into #OperationLegend DOJ has arrested 2,000+ people but has only filed charges in 476 cases.
In other words, they are "declining" to file federal charges in the vast majority of cases (76%).
FYI: That's more than triple the normal federal declination rate for 2019.
Data from USAO Annual Statistical Report, in tbl. 1 (cases filed) & tbl. 14 (cases declined).
I'm calculating declination rate as (filed) / (filed + declined)
justice.gov/usao/page/file…
Reminds me of the federal "surge" in #PDX to suppress what the administration called "violent mobs," which led to maybe two dozen federal charges over the course of a three week operation? So, like, a charge a day? (Not sure the latest count.) justice.gov/usao-or/pr/18-…
As I told @pbump in the @washingtonpost back then, there's a perhaps counterintuitive problem here: Arresting people without charging them insulates the arrest itself from any sort of judicial (or often public) scrutiny. Increases risk of lawless arrests. washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/…
It's a tricky problem to solve:
Well, not *that* tricky. Not arresting people illegally in the first place would take care of it. But...
Sorry, to clarify, the calculation above is the "filed rate." The declination rate is (declined) / (filed + declined), which is what I did to get the declination rate in the initial tweet. Typing too fast when explaining it in the tweet immediately above.🤦🏾♂️
PS - Posting this mid-thread clarification here for visibility:
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