Crime
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DETROIT – House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. released the following statement after the announcement of the grand jury's decision not to indict Ferguson, MO police officer Darren Wilson:
Today, Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (MI-13) applauded the enactment of the "Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act of 2014" (H.R. 4323), which President Obama signed into law yesterday. This law authorizes funding of nearly $194 million for each of Fiscal Years 2015-2019 for the Department of Justice to administer various grants, including the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program, to assist state and local law enforcement agencies in solving rape and other violent crimes.
The House of Representatives today approved by a vote of 302-121 the USA Freedom Act (H.R. 3361), a bipartisan bill authored by Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.) that ends bulk collection of data by the government and reforms our nation's intelligence-gathering programs operated under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Today, Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole announced six criteria the Department of Justice will consider when reviewing and expediting clemency applications – for President Obama's review and approval – from a select group of non-violent individuals behind bars. These petitions will be prioritized for review over other clemency petitions that do not require all six criteria.
Today, U.S. House Judiciary Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) reintroduced the "Democracy Restoration Act of 2014." This legislation would reinstate the right to vote in federal elections for millions of Americans with a past conviction who are currently out of prison. In the United States today, there are more than 5.8 million individuals who are ineligible to vote due to a felony conviction, yet nearly 4 million of those citizens are no longer in prison and almost 3 million disenfranchised individuals have completed their entire sentence.
Today, Representative John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Representative Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, led an 82 member letter to President Barack Obama urging him to renew enforcement of the ban on imported military-style firearms that was previously enforced during the H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations. Enforcing this ban would serve the dual purpose of improving public safety in the U.S.
Today, the Over-Criminalization Task Force, a bipartisan working group convened by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee to consider reforms to the criminal justice system, held a hearing entitled "Criminal Code Reform." After delivering his opening remarks, Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) issued the following statement: