Attorney General Merrick Garland talks about preventing gun violence in the White House Rose Garden in Washington, DC, on April 8, 2021.
Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Images
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday rescinded the limits of Trump-era consent decrees, which the Justice Department has used to implement reforms to police departments accused of widespread misconduct.
Garland, fulfilling a campaign promise by President Joe Biden, said in a memorandum that the Justice Department will “return to the traditional process” that existed before the administration of former President Donald Trump imposed strong restrictions on the tool of civil rights.
“Together, we will continue the Department’s legacy of promoting the rule of law, protecting the public, and collaborating with state and local government entities to meet those goals,” Garland said in the note, which was sent to lawyers of the United States and other leading DOJs.
The reversal of the policy comes amid historically close relationships between police departments and black communities. A number of fatalities involving police over the past year, in particular the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, sparked waves of nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism.
Derek Chauvin, the former white police officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes before he died, is on trial on murder charges. The recent shooting death near Minneapolis of Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old black man, has sparked more protests in Minnesota.
Consent decrees are court-ordered agreements that can be used to resolve violations of the law or systemic misconduct discovered during federal investigations by state or local law enforcement agencies.
For example, after the deadly shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, the DOJ initiated an investigation by the Ferguson Police Department for “an alleged pattern or practice of illegal misconduct” and other issues. Less than a year later, the Justice Department said it found “a number of patterns or practices of unconstitutional conduct.”
A federal judge in April 2016 passed the consent decree between Ferguson and the Justice Department, which required extensive changes to the police department.
Just before he was fired by Trump in November 2018, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions signed a note limiting the use of Justice Department consent decrees.
Changes to the sessions included the need for consent decrees to be approved by senior management and to include an expiration date, rather than being in effect until the court deems it can be given. to finish the case.
“I am terminating the November 2018 memorandum,” Garland said in his note.
As a presidential candidate, Biden promised that under his administration the DOJ “will again use its authority to eliminate unconstitutional or illegal policing.”