Biden Faces Pressure to Select Progressive Prosecutors

President Joe Biden is under pressure to expand his criminal justice reform efforts to include the dozens of U.S. attorney offices across the country that prosecute federal crimes and oversee the country’s 93 districts, reports The Hill. With more and more cities electing progressive district attorneys who campaigned on reducing mass incarceration, reformers are pushing Biden to follow suit and pick a new breed of federal prosecutors, with recently a  coalition of advocacy groups sending a letter to Biden calling on him to nominate federal prosecutors “capable of delivering fair sentencing, rearranging prosecutorial priorities and rooting out misconduct.”

Administrations of both parties have historically tapped career prosecutors and attorneys from prestigious law firms to fill U.S. attorney positions around the country, a trend that critics argue has cemented a tough-on-crime culture that is increasingly at odds with the nation’s evolving views on criminal justice. However, in recent years voters in major cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Boston and San Francisco have been electing progressive candidates to serve as local district attorneys and have campaigned on using prosecutors’ broad authority and discretion to shift priorities away from low-level offenses, reduce sentencing recommendations and other policies aimed at decreasing the country’s massive prison population. Reform activists say that Biden should follow the example set by the progressive prosecutor movement at the local level and draw upon public defenders and other attorneys who see a need for change.