Holder favors moratorium on lethal injection

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday that a national moratorium on lethal injection "would be appropriate'' until the Supreme Court completes its latest review of the execution process as part of a case initially brought by Oklahoma death row inmates.

At the National Press Club, Holder said he was speaking "personally'' on the issue and not as a member of the administration, though the death penalty is the subject of a review by the Justice Department.

The Justice review, directed by President Obama after a botched execution last year in Oklahoma, will probably not be completed before Holder leaves office in the next several weeks. His likely successor, Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch, awaits a confirmation vote.

"There are fundamental questions that we need to ask about the death penalty,'' said Holder, who restated his opposition to capital punishment. "There is always the possibility that mistakes will be made. ... It is for that reason that I am opposed to the death penalty.''

Holder described a scenario in which an innocent person may be wrongly executed as the "ultimate nightmare.'' He said it is "inevitable'' that such a case has occurred.

Last month, the Supreme Court announced it was considering whether a drug protocol used in recent lethal injections violates the Constitution's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

The justices agreed to review the case brought by four death row prisoners, one of whom was put to death after the court refused to block his execution using a three-drug combination that has apparently caused some prisoners pain.

Holder's comments on a moratorium do not require any response from states that use lethal injection. And the federal government remains engaged in a lawsuit challenging its lethal injection process, which has not been used in more than a decade.

But Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said Holder's voice is important to the debate. "All of this has symbolic impact'' on a landscape where questions also have been raised about defendants' access to counsel and mounting numbers of wrongful convictions involving death row prisoners.

Holder's remarks on the death penalty came in response to questions after a speech related to the administration's efforts on another pressing criminal justice issue: sentencing changes.

He said the rate at which federal prosecutors sought mandatory minimum prison terms for non-violent drug offenders dropped to record lows in 2014.

According to data released by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, prosecutors sought harsh mandatory-minimum punishments 51% of the time in 2014, down from nearly 64% in the previous year.

Sentencing changes have become the centerpiece of Holder's criminal justice strategy, part of an effort to reduce the overcrowded federal prison population. About 30% of the Justice Department budget has been consumed by federal prison operations.

Overall, the number of drug prosecutions declined by 6% during the same period.

"For years prior to this administration, federal prosecutors were not only encouraged but required to always seek the most severe prison sentence possible for all drug cases, no matter the relative risk they posed to public safety,'' Holder said. "I have made a break from that philosophy. While old habits are hard to break, these numbers show that a dramatic shift is underway in the mind-set of prosecutors handling non-violent offenses.''

In the last two years of Holder's tenure, the attorney general has sought to revamp a criminal justice system he described as "broken.''