Shaun King: Delaware AG sent the ‘single most important memo ever written on justice reform’

Last month, we told you about Delaware Attorney General Kathleen Jennings’ plan to reform criminal justice in the state, including discouraging judges from setting cash bail, prison alternatives for non-violent offenders, and essentially (though not literally) decriminalizing marijuana so the laws can’t be disproportionately applied to African Americans and Latinos.

Criminal justice activist and The Real Justice PAC founder Shaun King, with his 1.1 million Twitter followers, just got the (literal) memo — and it’s safe to say he approves:

https://twitter.com/shaunking/status/1105125050754232320

In an article in The Intercept, King praises the Delaware Attorney General’s Feb. 15 memo, which he called “so out of the ordinary that when I first got it, I wondered if it was even real.”

King goes on to call the memo “six pages of brilliance. Now listen, if me and the homies were in charge and wrote this memo, of course it would look and sound a lot more like it came from the Black Panther Party. But don’t be mistaken, this memo is 2,000 words of badassery.”

On Jennings’ stated commitment to providing fair and equal justice regardless of race, income or ZIP code, he wrote: “You can pretty much determine, using those three pieces of information, whether or not a person is going to get anything that even remotely resembles ‘fairness and equality.’ For a prosecutor’s office to acknowledge the biases that, for decades, have been accepted as the status quo represents a striking shift.”

Folks from all over soon responded on Twitter in kind:

https://twitter.com/_jcarce/status/1105134765265412096

Really excited about this reform plan. @KathyJenningsDE is phenomenal. I had the honor of working with her. Go Kathy Go!!! Delaware Attorney General Kathleen Jennings has unveiled a startlingly progressive reform agenda https://t.co/22pLzryrR2 by @ShaunKing

— Patti (@pattiamattson) March 12, 2019

https://twitter.com/EllynThomps/status/1105299440779345920

It wasn’t all fawning (which is never a good look when we’re talking about elected officials). In the article, King said: “The memo is not perfect, by any means. I wish it made the case for abolishing cash bail. I wish it fully decriminalized marijuana. I wish it fully decriminalized sex work. I wish it did more to address restorative justice. But it’s a great start.”

Read the full article on The Intercept.