Outgoing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will speak Friday in downtown Los Angeles at a ceremony for graduates of an experimental federal diversion program that aims to keep low-level offenders out of prison.
By successfully completing the Conviction and Sentence Alternatives — or CASA — program, federal offenders accused of less serious crimes can avoid prison or have their cases dismissed outright.
Intensive supervision is a hallmark of the program, which is open to defendants who have pleaded guilty to low-level cases of drug trafficking, fraud, perjury, bank robbery and other crimes.
Alternative sentencing programs have been operating in state courts over the past 25 years, but such programs are rare at the federal level.
Once participants are accepted, they must show up in court periodically to meet with fellow CASA participants, a judge, prosecutors, public defenders and pretrial services officers. They must submit to random drug tests and check in regularly with their pretrial services officer.
Ultimately, few are accepted to CASA. About 50 of the 1,500 defendants whom the federal court’s pretrial services department supervises across the district are in the program.
Holder’s visit to Los Angeles, in which he will speak at Friday’s CASA graduation at the downtown federal courthouse and afterward will participate in a roundtable discussion with officials of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, is part of his “Smart on Crime” tour.
In August of last year, the Attorney General announced the initiative to increase the U.S. Department of Justice’s efforts to strengthen the criminal justice system, increase public safety and support sentencing reform across the board.
Holder, the nation’s first black attorney general, said last month that he will resign his post as soon as a successor is confirmed, a process that could last into next year. His nearly six-year tenure as chief of the Justice Department has been marked by civil rights advances, national security threats and reforms to the criminal justice system.
—City News Service