Atty. Gen. Eric Holder Jr.

Attorney General Eric Holder has a partial solution to the U.S.’s massive prison overcrowding – less time for drug offenders.

The Associated Press reports that Holder is addressing overcrowding by favoring drug treatment and community service programs in lieu of long prison sentences. He also support the early release of some elderly inmates.

“We need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish, deter and rehabilitate — not merely to convict, warehouse and forget,” Holder says in the speech he’s scheduled to deliver Monday.

A major change includes ending mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders without ties to gangs, cartels or other large organizations.

Whitey Bulger

As jurors begin their fifth day of deliberations in the racketeering and murder trial reputed mobster James “Whitey” Bulger today, relatives of victims are hoping for some closure and justice, the USA Today reports.

Theresa Barrett Bond, however, may never get that closure because she has lost trust in the law enforcement system because of the FBI’s underhanded involvement with Bulger.

Bond said she has no doubt Bulger, who was the leader of the infamous Winter Hill Gang, killer her father, Arthur Barrett in 1983.

Authorities said Barrett was murdered after refusing to give Bulger a share of stolen loot from a $1.5 million bank heist in 1980.

“Because we had government agents on the take for money, our dads are dead,” Bond said Friday as the jury deliberated. Bulger “would have been (taken) off the streets if the government had done what it was supposed to do.”

Steve Neavling

The ATF’s botched sting in Milwaukee last year continues to unravel as the depth of the feds’ mistakes become better known.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported prosecutors have dropped charges against another three defendants charged in an undercover ATF sting.

Milwaukee County Assistant District Attorney Karen Loebel said the three cases were dismissed to protect informants who set up the drug and gun deals.

The litany of mistakes continues to grow: Agents used a brain-damaged man to set up the deals. Government-owned guns were stolen from the undercover store front, and a total of $40,000 in merchandise has gone missing, the Journal Sentinel reported.

Enrique Camarena

A Mexican drug lord convicted of kidnapping, torturing and murdering a DEA agent in 1985 has been released from jail, a move that has incensed U.S. law enforcement, Slate reports.

The U.S. expressed deep frustration with a three-judge court that decided to overturn Caro Quintero’s sentence on the argument that he should have been prosecuted in state not federal court.

Slate reported that the U.S. is working with Mexican authorities to nab others responsible for the murder of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena.”

The Justice Department is among the U.S. agencies expressing concern with Mexico.

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, Texas-R, called the decision to overturn Quintero’s sentence “insulting” and warned of a “negative impact” between U.S. and Mexico relations.

Todd Jones

By Daily Journal

The gun lobby and its supporters, who have continuously demanded more enforcement against illegal firearms trafficking rather than new restrictions, have given an inch toward backing up their demands by permitting the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to have a permanent director for the first time in seven years.

The Senate approved B. Todd Jones to lead the agency. It is now up to the ATF to pull itself together under the long-denied central command and come up with an overall policy for cutting down criminal gun violence.

That won’t be easy, considering roadblocks such as the lack of universal background checks for firearms purchasers of all stripes and in every venue and Congress’ failure to limit the sale of high-powered military weapons or the number of bullets in a clip. But it is a start.

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