This seems to be one of the more popular phrases popping up in both the State Department and the Justice Department these days: prosecutorial discretion. Even though the phrase seems fairly self-explanatory, here’s a quick definition:
Prosecutorial discretion refers to the fact that under American law, government prosecuting attorneys have nearly absolute powers. A prosecuting attorney has power on various matters including those relating to choosing whether or not to bring criminal charges, deciding the nature of charges, plea bargaining and sentence recommendation. This discretion of the prosecuting attorney is called prosecutorial discretion.
The reason the term is important is because it’s cropping up more and more in certain high profile cases inside the Obama administration. National Review’s Joel Gehrke comes up with the latest example and it involves none other than Lois Lerner. She was due for a meeting with some legal eagles after her hearings on the Hill, but that never came to pass. The decision to pass on the matter lands in the lap of Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Justice Department officials used “prosecutorial discretion” to shelter former IRS official Lois Lerner from a grand jury after she was held in contempt of Congress.
“I believe that in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, the matter was handled and was resolved,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch told the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning.
The administration’s invocation of prosecutorial discretion has become familiar to lawmakers through the debate over President Obama’s recent series of executive orders on immigration, and it frustrates Republicans. Lynch’s answer particularly annoyed Representative Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), who led much of the investigation into the IRS’s Tea Party targeting scandal when he was chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Prosecutorial discretion refers to the fact that under American law, government prosecuting attorneys have nearly absolute powers. A prosecuting attorney has power on various matters including those relating to choosing whether or not to bring criminal charges, deciding the nature of charges, plea bargaining and sentence recommendation. This discretion of the prosecuting attorney is called prosecutorial discretion.
The reason the term is important is because it’s cropping up more and more in certain high profile cases inside the Obama administration. National Review’s Joel Gehrke comes up with the latest example and it involves none other than Lois Lerner. She was due for a meeting with some legal eagles after her hearings on the Hill, but that never came to pass. The decision to pass on the matter lands in the lap of Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
Justice Department officials used “prosecutorial discretion” to shelter former IRS official Lois Lerner from a grand jury after she was held in contempt of Congress.
“I believe that in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, the matter was handled and was resolved,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch told the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning.
The administration’s invocation of prosecutorial discretion has become familiar to lawmakers through the debate over President Obama’s recent series of executive orders on immigration, and it frustrates Republicans. Lynch’s answer particularly annoyed Representative Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), who led much of the investigation into the IRS’s Tea Party targeting scandal when he was chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.