CONSENT DECREE USE FOR POLICE ABUSES REINSTATED

AG Garland says they’re an effective tool for reform

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday rescinded a Trump administration policy that curbed the use of consent decrees to address police misconduct, as the Justice Department prepared to step up its role in investigating allegations of racist and illegal behavior by police forces.

Garland’s widely anticipated decision revives one of the department’s most effective tools in forcing law enforcement agencies to evaluate and change their practices. Consent decrees are court-approved deals between the Justice Department and local governmental agencies that create a road map for changes to the way they operate.

Garland’s announcement came against the backdrop of fresh unrest and protests sparked by the ongoing murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes before Floyd died, and the recent police killings of Daunte Wright, a motorist in the suburbs of Minneapolis, and Adam Toledo, a 13-year-old boy in Chicago.

And it is one of the Biden administration’s first significant moves to hold police forces accountable in cases where they are found to have violated federal laws. President Joe Biden has called Floyd’s death a travesty and signaled support for the George Floyd Justice in Policing legislation that Democrats in the House recently passed. But he has reversed course on a campaign promise to establish a police oversight commission during his first 100 days in office.

“Consent decrees and underlying pattern and practice investigations are one of the most powerful tools any administration has to address policing issues,” said Kristy Parker, a veteran of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division who now works at the nonprofit legal group Protect Democracy.

“Unlike passing legislation, it’s a tool the administration controls,” she said. “The ability to conduct exhaustive investigations and reform police departments by negotiating consent decrees allows an administration to produce a public airing of the systemic failures that produce excessive force and to work with jurisdictions to make meaningful comprehensive changes.”

In a memo to U.S. attorney’s offices, Garland said that he was lifting restrictions on the use of consent decrees that had been imposed by Jeff Sessions at the end of his tenure as attorney general during the Trump administration.

Garland said consent decrees have historically been used in a wide array of contexts, including “to secure equal opportunity in education, protect the environment, ensure constitutional policing practices, defend the free exercise of religion” and more.

“A consent decree ensures independent judicial review and approval of the resolution” between the federal government and government entities found to have violated federal law, Garland said in his memo. They also allow for “prompt and effective enforcement” if those local government agencies do not comply with the terms of the agreement.