Andrew Weissmann writes here: "Imagine a drug dealer who had sold 15 kilos of heroin; you cannot re-create them as simply one kilo in order to achieve a lower sentence..." In 2013, AG Holder issued a policy directing prosecutors to use that very technique theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Holder was seeking to address mandatory minimums, which he felt were resulting in "unduly harsh sentences." He issued a memo telling prosecutors to, in certain drug cases, "decline to charge the quantity necessary to trigger a mandatory minimum sentence" justice.gov/sites/default/…
AG Sessions revoked this policy in 2017 and drew significant criticism for doing so. Civil liberties advocates had seen the Holder directive as a good thing, allowing prosecutors to get around laws that produced unfair punishments washingtonpost.com/world/national…
