Eric Holder 'confident' Michael Brown shooting inquiry to conclude soon
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Version 0 of 1. In one of his final speeches before leaving office, US attorney general Eric Holder said on Tuesday that he is “confident” the conclusions of the Department of Justice’s investigation into the shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown will be released before he steps down. The Justice Department has been considering whether officer Darren Wilson should face federal civil rights charges related to Brown’s death, and if the Ferguson police department has violated community members’ rights. “My hope is, as I said, is that we will do this before I leave office, and I’m confident that we will do that,” said Holder, while speaking to the National Press Club in Washington DC. “The reviews are under way. I was briefed on both of them, just last week, and I’m satisfied with the progress we have made and also comfortable in saying that I am going to be able to make those calls before I leave office,” said Holder. Holder visited Ferguson in August, where he told a crowd of community college students about his own personal experience with racism. “I am the attorney general of the United States. But I am also a black man,” he said at the time. The shooting of Brown and the death of Eric Garner, a black New York City resident who died after being put in a chokehold by a police officer, resulted in global protests over race and policing issues in the US. This increased focus on the issues prompted President Barack Obama to create a taskforce on modern policing, due to present its recommendations for improving police and community relations next month. Related: Pressure is on White House policing taskforce to deliver needed reforms Last week, FBI director James Comey became the first person in his position to give a high-profile speech about racism and policing. Holder applauded the speech on Tuesday and supported Comey’s statements about the need to address underlying issues of racism in the US, as well as Comey’s call for an increase in data collection about both police use of force and what kind of force police are having to deal with. “We have this sense based on these incidents – that get a huge amount of attention, stir the nation – we have a sense that things are amiss, but we don’t have a real good sense of what the nature of the problem is,” Holder said. Holder, the first black US attorney general, will remain in office until the Senate confirms his replacement. A final vote on Obama’s nominee to succeed Holder, Loretta Lynch, is not expected until March, though the Justice Department has urged Congress to speed up the process. “You would think in some ways Loretta’s process would be sped up given their desire to see me out office,” Holder said. “Be that as it may, logic has never necessarily been a guide up there.” Holder announced in September 2014 that he was stepping down from the post, which he has held since Obama took office – making him the third longest serving attorney general in US history. In his opening remarks on Tuesday, Holder touted the results of drug sentencing reform he enacted in 2013, which, according to government estimates, saw federal prosecutors bring to trial fewer nonviolent drug trafficking cases and pursue mandatory minimum sentences at the lowest rate on record in fiscal year 2014. Overall, federal drug trafficking cases dropped by 6% in that period. Holder noted that, prior to the Obama administration, prosecutors were required to seek harsh prison sentences for drug cases. “I have made a break from that philosophy,” said Holder. “While old habits are hard to break, these numbers show that a dramatic shift is under way in the mindset of prosecutors handling nonviolent drug offenses. I believe we have taken steps to institutionalize this fairer, more practical approach such that it will endure for years to come.” Holder, who opposes the death penalty, also used the speech to call for a national moratorium on executions until the supreme court rules on a case challenging Oklahoma’s procedure for lethal injections. Obama ordered a review of use of the death penalty in the wake of the botched execution of Clayton Lockett, who was seen writhing on the execution table before dying of heart failure. Holder said that while the justice system gets things “substantially more right than wrong”, it is inevitable that an innocent person will be executed if the US continues to use the death penalty. “It is one thing to put somebody in jail for an extended period of time, have some new test that you can do and determine that person was in fact innocent,” Holder said. “There is no ability to correct a mistake where somebody has in fact been executed. And that is from my perspective the ultimate nightmare.” |