John Conyers: “This amendment is probably fundamental to the whole juvenile justice bill because now we are going to take the last…”

“This amendment is probably fundamental to the whole juvenile justice bill because now we are going to take the last resort of prosecutors: When there is nothing left, you cannot get any substantive case, you can always tack on a conspiracy charge, always. Now we are going to go to 13-year-olds and 14-year-olds to nail them. Well, one picks up his big brother's phone, and it is a drug something going on, and the kid picks up the phone. The phone is tapped. He is brought in with his brother. He says: Well, I do not even know what you are talking about. They say: Well, kid, you were not in on the drug deal but you were in on the planning of it because we have got your voice on the phone. Get him out of that, Mr. Chairman. We cannot get him out of that because the prosecutor does not have anything else to get him on. Now we are stooping to the lowest statutory tactic that prosecutors frequently, not all of them, but frequently use. How could we not support the amendment of the gentlewoman from California?”