It’s no secret that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been dealing with internal struggles and political indoctrination since President Donald Trump took office this year, but the actual extent to which I’ve seen these issues protrude into the lives of the attorneys, judges and clients involved can only be viewed as a nightmare.
This semester, I completed an internship under a criminal defense attorney in Washington D.C., where I’ve spent every workday in court collaborating with the United States attorneys that were handling the cases against our clients. I’ve personally watched prosecutors struggle to maintain increasing caseloads, judges scold them for trying cases with little evidence and even seen multiple U.S. attorneys fired for a semblance of disloyalty.
This level of over-control and instability has led to a mass of problems – inside and outside their office – that threaten the fairness of our justice system.
The Department of Justice controls all 93 U.S. attorney’s offices across the country, and the office controlling Washington has the ability to prosecute federal crimes as well as local crimes, making it stand above the rest. But the Washington office’s new attorney generals have issued ridiculous orders and policies that are bound to break its own mission statement, which is “ … to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.”
Edward Martin, the interim attorney general, fired or demoted more than two dozen prosecutors for their work on prosecuting Jan. 6 rioters when he took office. He sent a letter to Georgetown University’s Law Center saying he wouldn’t hire any graduating students because of their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. And when he was rejected by the Senate for his controversial approach to justice, the current attorney general Jeanine Pirro took his place and led the office down an arguably worse path. She ordered prosecutors to be on duty around the clock – ready to receive calls from officers in the middle of the night – and urged them to try as many cases as possible in superior and federal court. She also ordered them to prosecute every eligible case to the extreme.
Pirro and her supporters point to the reduction in violent crime of 28% in Washington compared to last year as evidence of the DOJ’s renewed success. On paper, this statistic proves that this strategy is working, but in reality, it doesn’t speak to the downsides that come with these controversial policies. For U.S. attorneys, larger caseloads create burnout and a failure to succeed at the cases they’re assigned.
For judges, more cases on a docket means less time to devote to one case or another and forces them to speed through hearings to see that all their cases are called. For defense attorneys, the lack of compromise and a failure to communicate properly with U.S. attorneys who are ordered to prosecute to the extreme is more than frustrating when trying to get the best outcome for a client. Violent crime may be down, but if those crimes aren’t being prosecuted, judged or defended properly to give fairness to all, then what’s the point?
Specifically, my team and I defended a client – who is currently held in jail – that was interested in taking a plea deal. We worked extensively with a U.S. attorney to secure an adequate plea for this client, one with no more jail time than he’s currently serving. This deal was finally put in place, until the DOJ fired this U.S. attorney for writing in a sentencing memo for another defendant that Jan. 6 was a “mob of rioters.” The defendant was a pardoned Jan. 6 rioter, who came to former President Barack Obama’s house with a firearm.
After his absence, a new U.S. attorney was assigned to this case and the negotiations were forced from scratch. That defendant is currently held in jail, still awaiting the proper course of action from the DOJ and is being affected by the internal struggles of the U.S. attorney’s office.
Removing U.S. attorneys for using language not favored by the Trump administration and forcing them to work absurd hours and ensuring that they try every case they possibly can has resulted in issues in the courthouse and frustrations for those accused. When the attorneys that work under the DOJ are being pushed to their limits by the Trump administration, everyone in the court system suffers, and by no means do these policies ensure a “fair and impartial administration of justice for all.”
