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Prosecutors Who Won't Enforce Anti-Abortion Laws
This is a statement by 82 prosecutors who say they won't prosecute violations of state anti-abortion laws 'cause they don't like 'em. The Profiles In Courage Award goes to Multnomah County (Portland) DA Mike Schmidt, who signed the statement even though he works in a jurisdiction where there are no anti-abortion laws to enforce.[FAIRANDJUSTPROSECUTION] We are a group of elected prosecutors representing communities across every region of the country. Over the past few years, we have watched with increasing concern as the constitutional right to abortion has been threatened and eroded. Now, the Supreme Court’s decision to end the federally protected constitutional right to abortion first established five decades ago in Roe v. Wade — a right that three generations of Americans have come of age relying upon — means that abortions will immediately or soon be banned, and potentially criminalized, in at least half of our nation’s states. As elected prosecutors, ministers of justice, and leaders in our communities, we cannot stand by and allow members of our community to live in fear of the ramifications of this deeply troubling decision. Not all of us agree on a personal or moral level on the issue of abortion. But we stand together in our firm belief that prosecutors have a responsibility to refrain from using limited criminal legal system resources to criminalize personal medical decisions. As such, we decline to use our offices’ resources to criminalize reproductive health decisions and commit to exercise our well- settled discretion and refrain from prosecuting those who seek, provide, or support abortions. Prosecutors are entrusted with immense discretion. With this discretion comes the obligation to seek justice. And at the heart of the pursuit of justice is the furtherance of policies and practices that protect the well-being and safety of all members of our community. Prosecutors make decisions every day about how to allocate limited resources and which cases to prosecute. Indeed, our communities have entrusted us to use our best judgment in deciding how and if to leverage the criminal legal system to further the safety and well-being of all, and we are ethically bound to pursue those interests in every case. Enforcing abortion bans runs counter to the obligations and interests we are sworn to uphold. It will erode trust in the legal system, hinder our ability to hold perpetrators accountable, take resources away from the enforcement of serious crime, and inevitably lead to the retraumatization and criminalization of victims of sexual violence. So, prosecutors get to veto acts of the state legislatures if they disagree with the acts. Perhaps they could at least give us a list of criminal statutes they will enforce. Is armed robbery still, like, a bad thing?
Posted by: Matt 2022-06-25 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=636618 |