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Attorney General Merrick Garland has rescinded a Trump administration policy that restricts the enforcement of executive orders that provide a way to force changes in police departments. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland on Friday rescinded a Trump administration policy that limited the use of consent orders to combat police misconduct as the Justice Department prepared to step up its role in investigating allegations of racist and illegal police behavior amid a national outcry over the deaths of blacks by officials. Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department aggressively used consent decrees and judicial monitors to bring about changes in the police force that engaged in a consistent pattern of abuse as people nationwide denounced the killings of black men by police in Baltimore. Chicago and Ferguson, Mo. Since taking over as head of the Department of Justice, Garland has refocused on issues of civil rights and accountability in law enforcement. The department has launched civil investigations into police departments in three cities, Minneapolis, Louisville and Phoenix, to determine whether they are engaging in an unconstitutional or illegal policing “pattern or practice.” But even if the Justice Department is aggressive when it comes to launching such investigations, and even if it guarantees strong consent decrees, federal court decisions don`t last forever. In the words of the Supreme Court, judges usually have to overturn a court order after “local authorities have worked in accordance with it for a reasonable period of time.” “An order of approval ensures independent judicial review and resolution approval” between the federal government and government agencies that have violated federal law, Garland said in his note. They also allow for “immediate and effective enforcement” if these local government agencies do not comply with the terms of the agreement. This appeared to be happening in Pittsburgh after the repeal of the consent decree binding its police department in 2002.
As Roy Austin, who served as senior civil rights attorney at the Department of Justice and assistant to President Obama at the Bureau of Urban Affairs, Justice, and Opportunity, put it, a city that negotiates an approval order “cannot accept something that violates its collective agreement.” Again, a key word in the phrase “consent order” is “consent,” and a city cannot accept a court order that conflicts with its obligations under another existing contract. While President Trump responds to rebellions against police violence with inflammatory words that suggest shooting looters and targeting “vicious dogs” at protesters, his administration maintains a linked tool to improve police-community relations. “I think the Trump administration and its Department of Justice have completely eroded police reform efforts,” said Vanita Gupta, acting assistant attorney general for civil rights under the Obama administration and currently president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Another study found that consent decrees are very effective in reducing deaths caused by police officers, but only when police are monitored by a controller. “In the absence of court-appointed observers, the consent decrees have not resulted in significant changes in the number of citizen deaths,” writes Li Sian Goh, a doctoral student in criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. But “when federal courts appointed oversight teams to oversee the consent order agreement, police departments saw a 29 percent drop in deaths.” The Monitor team includes individuals with expertise in policing, civil rights, surveillance, data analysis, project management and related fields, as well as local experience and expertise in Baltimore`s diverse communities. The Controller`s mission is to assess and report on the implementation of the requirements of the Consent Decree, and to actively provide technical assistance to the City and the DBP to ensure compliance. Police officers generally recognize that consent decrees can be helpful, and they have asked the Ministry of Justice on a few occasions to appoint controllers to drive changes in their departments. Lord. Sessions also said the division`s lawyers should provide evidence of additional violations beyond unconstitutional conduct; and that consent orders should have an end date, rather than ending when the court was satisfied that improvements had been made. Similarly, a 2019 report in the Christian Science Monitor found that “the serious use of force by officers increased from 14 in 2013 to 1 last year” and that “the percentage of people whose interactions with police were described as pleasant and polite increased from 53% in 2009 to 87% a decade later.” Ten years later, Sessions explained this reasoning in his farewell memo.
When a federal judge is tasked with implementing reforms, the outgoing attorney general has stated that “such oversight can take control of their government away from the elected representatives of the population of the affected jurisdiction.” Instead of letting local or state police policies be set by elected officials, consent decrees can transfer power to a federal judge. “Who decides you have to keep monitoring?” Mr. Linskey said. “Usually, the monitor, who receives a fairly large amount of money.” He noted that Kroll is overseeing the work. He said he hoped Garland would work as much as possible with police services to conduct reviews and reach consent orders. Which brings us to the consent decrees. A key word in this sentence is “consent.” Consent orders are agreements between two or more parties to a lawsuit – often the Department of Justice and a particular police service – where a party agrees to change their behaviour in certain ways. “Consent decrees are not perfect because there is no perfect mechanism for the type of change required,” Gupta said. “But they are the best there is.” While a federal comptroller cannot try all cases where an officer is accused of wrongdoing, that comptroller can notify the judge if a department has inadequate systems in place to discipline rogue officers. And the very existence of the monitor reminds us that a person with power over the department keeps an eye on his actions. Mass protests against police violence stem from frustration that the democratic system does not work to ensure that the police respect civil rights, a frustration that stems from the perception that the police often operate outside the democratic process – often with the support of police unions, which consider that protecting their own right is more important than ensuring, that the police obey the law. .
