Senate Judiciary Committee
October 21, 2003


One of the essential missions of Congress is obtain concrete information from the executive branch about how well or poorly the agencies are meeting their obligations to the American people. Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, is a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. At a hearing on possible terrorist attacks in the future, Leahy cited TRAC data showing that in the first eleven months of FY 2003 a total of 236 individuals were sentenced to prison for criminal acts the department classified as categorized as terrorism that resulted in a median or typical sentence of only two months. "Two months is a very short sentence for any kind of terrorist act," Leahy told the Justice Department's witnesses. The senator asked for further information to determine whether the Department might be trying to puff up its record in the terrorism area by counting cases that had "little or nothing to do with terrorism."


Statement of The Honorable Patrick Leahy

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Syracuse University
Copyright 2003
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