Source: newrepublic.com 9/12/23
Russell Coleman’s bid to become Kentucky’s top lawyer has dredged up a troubling record of lenience.
The Republican candidate for Kentucky attorney general, Russell Coleman, is campaigning on a promise to be tough on crime, particularly crimes against children. But before running for attorney general, he served as U.S. attorney for the western district of Kentucky—and a closer look at his track record there shows a frightening laxity regarding sex offenders.
Coleman’s campaign comes at a time when state attorneys general exert increasing influence over how laws are implemented and prosecuted. If he wins in 2024, he would be in charge of enforcing both state and federal laws in Kentucky.
When Coleman unveiled his campaign for attorney general in May, he highlighted a commitment to be tough on crime, a popular Republican talking point. “My priority is the same as President Trump’s: Make America Safe Again by stopping the people who are poisoning our communities with deadly drugs and using technology to target our kids, parents and grandparents,” he said in his announcement. “As Attorney General, I will never stop working to protect our families, uphold our conservative values, and protect our Constitutional freedoms.”
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But while serving as U.S. attorney, Coleman offered at least 48 plea agreements to people accused of exploitation of or sexual offenses against children. Nearly half of those agreements included dismissing certain charges or recommended sentences far weaker than those the judge ultimately issued, the latter of which rarely happens.
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Coleman has fully embraced the Republican claim that the United States is falling into a state of lawlessness, with violent crime on the rise and Democratic leaders unable or unwilling to do anything about it. He has repeatedly blamed “woke prosecutors” for the rise in crime.
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In reality, violent crime in Kentucky dropped 10 percent in 2022, according to a state law enforcement report released in July. This is a larger drop than the national average decrease in violent crime, according to another July report by the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan research group.
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Since the start of the year, Republican attorneys general have begun to exert outsize influence over these issues.
A man gets gets convicted of receiving obscene material on his computer. He’s sentenced to 10 years, and serves nearly 6 of it behind bars. While on supervision, he gets caught ‘visiting’ websites with images of nude toddlers, although investigators found no evidence that he saved those images on his tablet. The judge ordered him to finish out his 10 year sentence followed by lifetime supervised release. Because DA Coleman agreed to a plea deal that eliminated supervised released after Leasor finished out his prison term, Coleman is somehow considered ‘soft on crime.’ Are you kidding me? As if 10 years in prison is not enough of a punishment that involved no violence and no contact with a victim. The man was looking at stuff on his computer, for Christ sake!🙀 I don’t know what angle New Republic is trying to play, but it’s fallen flat on it’s back. Maybe they’re trying to expose a republican as hypocritical for not being tough on crime, but DA Coleman is doing just as he said he would do. He agreed to send this guy back to prison for 4 more years. Isn’t that enough time for looking at nude photos of children on some tablet? Plus I think the DA is more interested in cracking down on violent crime, which he should. I normally find myself on the liberal side of the political spectrum, and I have been a long time reader of New Republic for their progressive stands. But they should no better than to play games and try and drag this prosecutor down.
TNR has gone puritan too, I see.
“But while serving as U.S. attorney, Coleman offered at least 48 plea agreements to people accused of exploitation of or sexual offenses against children. Nearly half of those agreements included dismissing certain charges or recommended sentences far weaker than those the judge ultimately issued, the latter of which rarely happens.”
Is this the first time Tori has ever written about criminal matters? This is genuinely what happens in something like 95% of criminal prosecutions. It’s baffling that this piece was published. I’d forgotten The New Republic existed, so I wonder if it’s basically a $500 bucks-a-story job like Newsweek has become, where they don’t even bother editing articles any more and they farm the writing out to people who live on social media and party partisans.
Well, because Registries and their “residential banishment zones” are idiotic social policy designed to placate idiots. No one with any sense thinks that banishment zones should exist.
But regarding your question, you should probably call the criminals who work in the criminal regime which is responsible for this banishment and ask them. Is it the criminal regime of Kentucky? A county criminal regime? Maybe read their dumb laws and see if it’s covered?