Latest on the MAGA Republican Agenda: Intimidate Prosecutors and Politicize Prosecution | Austin Sarat | Verdict

threats. Intimidation. Political retaliation. They are an important part of the MAGA Republican Toolkit. Journalists, judges, election officials and school board members who do not follow the MAGA line have all been targeted.

Local prosecutors are now added to the list.

Trump supporters have introduced bills in many red states to limit prosecutors’ discretion when exercised in a way that doesn’t fit their crime-fighting agenda. Such bills violate the separation of powers and threaten to politicize law enforcement, thereby undermining the rule of law.

Attacks on prosecutors are also on the rise as the prospect of one or more criminal charges against former President Trump rises.

At a rally in Texas in January, Trump branded black prosecutors from Georgia, New York and Washington, DC, all of whom are investigating him as “radical, vicious and racist.”

He was referring to Fulton County (Ga.) District Attorney Fani Willis, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Washington, DC Attorney General Karl Racine.

Echoing Trump’s infamous invitation to the people to rally in Washington, DC, In the run-up to the January 6 riot, he used his Texas speech to urge his supporters to stage what he called “the biggest protests we’ve ever had in Washington, DC, in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere ‘ to host when he is accused of it.

As charges come, there will surely be more vicious, personal and threatening attacks on the prosecutors who bring them.

Meanwhile, the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, headed by Republican MAGA Congressman Jim Jordan, targets investigations and prosecutions by the Biden Department of Justice. Jordan, whose clumsy and inept leadership of the committee has drawn the ire of even some of his usual MAGA allies, is planning public hearings to show that Biden’s Justice Department is “operating in … political ways and ways.”

Not to be outdone, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order last August suspending Tampa-area Attorney Andrew Warren. He did so after Warren flaunted the governor’s anti-Wake agenda by announcing that he would not prosecute anyone for violating Florida’s recently enacted abortion ban.

labyrinth said abortion law was ‘primarily unconstitutional’ based on privacy rights enshrined in the Florida Constitution.

But that didn’t matter to DeSantis, who said Warren’s “incompetence and willful disregard for his duties as a prosecutor” were demonstrated when Warren stated “that he would not enforce criminal statutes enacted by the Florida Legislature prohibiting providers from providing certain services.” perform abortions to protect the lives of unborn children.”

DeSantis also justified the suspension by saying Warren had signed a “joint statement” with other elected prosecutors pledging to “retain our discretion and not promote the criminalization of gender-affirming health or transgender individuals.”

However, a story in The New York Times suggests that the real reasons behind DeSantis’ suspension of Warren were purely political. The governor’s decision was “driven by a preconceived political narrative centered on a predetermined outcome, content with a flimsy investigation, and focused on maximizing media attention for Mr. DeSantis.”

After DeSantis’ action, Fox News host and MAGA propagandist Tucker Carlson ramped up and amplified the right-wing attack on prosecutors. He commended the Florida governor for standing up to Warren, whom Carlson called “George Soros’ prosecutor.”

Soros, he said, “has decided to destroy the American justice system, and he’s doing it with prosecutors.” In racially-coded language reminiscent of Willie Horton’s infamous advertisements, Carlson claimed that Soros-backed prosecutors “refuse to enforcing the law against protected groups… This is at the heart of their ideology. The result was a lot of fuss, but even more murder victims.”

Since then, Fox has aired a series of articles criticizing Soros and the prosecutors allegedly implementing his progressive agenda.

Continuing this MAGA-inspired hysteria, another attack on a prosecutor came in November, when the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania House voted to impeach Philadelphia’s Liberal District Attorney Larry Krasner. The Wall Street Journal reports that Republican lawmakers were angered that Krasner “diverted nonviolent drug offenders to treatment instead of jail, shielded juveniles from being tried as adults, and devoted resources to seeking old cases for wrongful prosecution and incarceration.” investigate”.

One of the impeachment articles alleged that Krasner ruled that crimes such as sex work, theft and drug offenses “would no longer be prosecuted and were therefore de facto legal.”

The final shot in the escalating war on prosecutors was fired in Georgia this month when the House of Representatives passed legislation that would create oversight bodies with the power to remove prosecutors. They could be disciplined if they refuse to prosecute people who commit certain types of low-level offenses and commit what the legislation calls “willful misconduct.” The members of these panels would be appointed by the governor and other officers who are currently Republicans.

Legislation in Georgia appears to be aimed at Fani Willis, who tops Trump’s list of hostile prosecutors.

Congresswoman and staunch Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene made the point when she accused Willis to use taxpayers’ money “for her personal political witch hunt against Pres Trump, but NOT to prosecute the crime plaguing Atlanta!”

In response to Georgia’s proposal, Willis noted that “in the hundreds of years that we’ve had prosecutors,” oversight boards have been “unnecessary.” But now that suddenly has priority.”

And Florida’s Warren is quoted in it The Washington Post On his take on the Georgia proposal, “We all want our elected officials to do their job well,” he said, “but giving one group of elected officials power over another doesn’t promote accountability — it promotes party loyalty. “

The interception Bills of the kind Georgia is considering have reportedly been introduced in 17 state legislatures. They target “reform-oriented prosecutors”. And the report suggests that this activity has a racist dimension that aligns very well with the MAGA agenda.

“Legislators are introducing bills to evade law enforcement,” she said intercept notes “to represent white suburban voters.” Their bills target prosecutors trying to do something about overcriminalization and racially disproportionate prosecutions in black and minority communities.

It is important to note that the prosecutor’s discretion is not without its problems. It can and has been abused.

But the discretion of the public prosecutor’s office has long played an indispensable role in a legal society.

When prosecutors press charges or deny them, we want to make sure they don’t do it to demonstrate their loyalty to a partisan agenda.

The exercise of prosecutors’ discretion is influenced by many factors, including, as a federal district court stated more than 60 years ago, “the likelihood of a conviction . . . Degree of crime, weight of evidence, credibility of witnesses, precedents, politics, climate of public opinion, timing and relative seriousness of the crime.

In all of this, as law professor Kenneth Melilli puts it, “enforcing justice should not be the accidental holdover of the process in which the prosecutor participates; it should be the guiding principle for every aspect of prosecution.”

And it has long been an accepted practice of prosecutors to develop internal rules and policy priorities for prosecution decision-making. It’s not new that they’re doing it now.

MAGA Republicans just don’t like the decisions they make and the policies they follow. They hope to bring local prosecutors under control by increasing legal and political control over them.

In the words that Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell once used to describe previous efforts to curb prosecutorial independence, the MAGA strategy threatens to “prevent the vigorous and fearless performance of the prosecutor’s duty, which is necessary for… the proper functioning of the criminal justice system is essential”.