Another high profile progressive in the Senate is concerned by how Republicans have seized hold of the criminal justice reform debate, accusing opponents across the aisle of holding up a bipartisan agreement to shield white-collar criminals from prosecution.
In a speech on the floor of the Senate Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the majority leaders would not advance changes to federal mandatory minimum sentences passed last year by the Senate Judiciary Committee unless Congress also approves of a mens rea bill—a measure that could allow corporate defendants to escape punishment, in cases where there is doubt about criminal intent.
“In other words, for these Republicans, the price of helping out people unjustly locked up in jail for years will be to make it even harder to lock up a white-collar criminal for even a single day,” Warren said in her remarks. “That is shameful – shameful. It’s shameful because we’re already way too easy on corporate lawbreakers,” she added.
The Senate Judiciary Committee deliberately left the intent proposals out of the compromise reform bill that it passed last October, despite pleas from the right. Committee member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in September had questioned whether pursuing criminal justice reform was “worth it,” if it doesn’t include mens rea provisions.
“Many members of the over-criminalization coalition who helped lay the key intellectual and political groundwork for the negotiations now under way believe strongly that any criminal justice reform bill that passes this body must include mens rea reform,” Hatch said.
The marked-up agreement, however, only focused on mandatory minimums–reducing them for non-violent drug offenders, while raising them for other types of convicted criminals.
When similar measures were passed out of the House Judiciary Committee a month later, however, Republicans on the panel did included the intent language.
“[A] host of high-profile conservative groups including the Koch brothers, the Heritage Foundation and the Manhattan Institute have been advocating for action on white-collar crime,” The Huffington Post noted, after the mark-up.
The White House criticized the vote. An official told HuffPo that “in the President’s view, criminal justice reform should only make the system better, not worse.”
In January, House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte (R-Virgina) responded, saying that any reform bill without mens rea narrowing “is not going anywhere in the House of Representatives.”
The renewed focus on intent last month prompted the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), to accuse Republicans of “sabotage.” He lamented that the bid to smooth inequities in the criminal justice system had become “a vehicle for corporate giveaway.”
Mens rea is Latin for “guilty mind” and is a term used by legal analysts to discuss criminal intent; a factor in determining the severity of crime and punishment. In a Judiciary Committee hearing on the matter last month, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said changes to federal interpretations of mens rea would lead to a “huge leap” in criminal law, highlighting concerns he had about “corporate responsibility” and “strict liability.”
In her remarks Tuesday, Warren said the American people expect Congress to fix its tiered justice system—and that the criminal intent proposals would perpetuate it.
“To anyone in Congress who thinks they can simply talk tough on crime and then vote to make it even harder to crack down on corporate criminals, hear this: I promise you–I promise you –the American people are watching,” she said. “And they will remember.”
