WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd February, 2021) All US police officers must be held accountable for any civil rights violations, federal judge Merrick Garland told the Senate Judiciary Committee in hearings on his nomination as the next Attorney General on Monday.
"Police accountability is an essential element of a police department to have credibility with the community," Garland said. "Police officers who violate the constitution must be held accountable."
Garland, who successfully prosecuted white supremacist Timothy McVeigh for blowing up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people including 19 children said that since then he had developed strong concerns about the use and abuse of the death penalty in the United States. McVeigh was executed by lethal injection in 2001.
"I supported the death penalty for McVeigh. I don't have any regret. But I have developed concerns about the death penalty since then because of how seldom it's applied and because of the disproportionate way it is applied to African Americans and other communities of color. Those give concerns give me pause," he said.
Garland said that the death penalty was constitutional but it was not required. He said he would not oppose a policy by the president to put a moratorium on all federal death sentences and added that it was within the president's authority to do so should he choose to.
