Joe Biden has selected another excellent candidate for a key position. He has Rachael Rollins up for the position of US Attorney in Massachusetts. As a district attorney in Boston, she was more well-known for the crimes she chose not to prosecute than for the ones she did, such as heroin and fentanyl traffickers. Last year, 90,000 individuals died from drug overdoses. She will either not prosecute or will not permit her deputies to prosecute a total of 15 offences.
The selection of President Biden as US attorney for Massachusetts has drawn criticism from Republican senators from Texas and Arkansas, Tom Cotton, and Ted Cruz. Most of them were enraged by her choice to drop the charges against drug offenders.
Cotton remarked:
“Even before she became a district attorney in Boston, she put out a list of 15 crimes that, by default, she will not allow her prosecutors to pursue without supervisor approval.”
Here are the fifteen crimes Rollins refused to prosecute in Boston:
• Trespassing
• Shoplifting (including offenses that are essentially shoplifting but charged as larceny)
• Larceny under $250
• Disorderly conduct
• Disturbing the peace
• Receiving stolen property
• Minor driving offenses, including operating with a suspended or revoked license
• Breaking and entering — where it is into a vacant property or where it is for the purpose of sleeping or seeking refuge from the cold and there is no actual damage to property
Rollins’ list, according to Cotton, contains offenses of various seriousness, from “trespassing” and “disorderly behavior” to “malicious destruction of property, threats, resisting arrest, and even drug trafficking.”
Since she assumed office, “she has released that list as the do not prosecute command,” Cotton added. “That’s right, in the midst of a national drug crisis with more than 90,000 of our fellow Americans killed by a drug overdose in the last year alone, Joe Biden’s nominee for U.S. attorney openly says that she does not believe that we should prosecute drug possession with intent to distribute substances like fentanyl and heroin.”
• Wanton or malicious destruction of property
• Threats — excluding domestic violence
• Minor in possession of alcohol
• Drug possession
• Drug possession with intent to distribute
• A standalone resisting arrest charge — i.e., cases where a person is charged with resisting arrest and that is the only charge
Cruz pursued Rollins’ non-prosecutable list as well, making good on a promise made in the hearing chamber to tweet the materials he saw at the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In a tweet that included images of the relevant paper, Cruz stated: “Today in the Judiciary Committee, I talked through a document demonstrating that Rachael Rollins, Joe Biden’s extreme candidate to be U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, will refuse to pursue crimes.