Federal prosecutors sent a letter last week to defense attorneys in Jacksonville, Tampa and Orlando telling them they have two weeks to finalize plea deals or risk sending their clients to prison for much, much longer.

The acting United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida told defense attorneys he was complying with a new memo from Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The Justice Department revoked previous policies that allowed prosecutors to show lenience. Instead, a "new policy requires that prosecutors charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense(s), which are those offenses that carry the most substantial guidelines sentence, including mandatory minimum sentences."

This could drastically increase how long inmates spend in prison. Under these guidelines, a prosecutor may be required to seek a life sentence for a repeat drug offender, to take one example, who was carrying even the smallest amount of marijuana.

Acting United States Attorney Stephen Muldrow wrote defense attorneys have until May 31 to file plea deals before the new guidelines take effect.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman said, "We do not wish to comment on the memorandum."

Federal Public Defender Donna L. Elm said her staff is rushing to process plea agreements before the deadline, but she’s grateful for at least two weeks. "I wish we had a little more time, but at least we have time to go to our clients to go back and say the ante may be upped."

The Middle District of Florida covers Jacksonville, Tampa and Orlando; about 12 million people live in the district.

‘SO UNNECESSARY AND SO HARMFUL’

Charles Truncale, a 23-year federal prosecutor who spent six years as chief prosecutor, blasted the new charging memo as "so unnecessary and so harmful. I see no good purpose for it. None at all. Let the prosecutors make their own decisions."

The new memo requires prosecutors seek whatever charges would lead to the most years in prison. Sessions’ memo does allow prosecutors to seek permission on specific cases to not follow the policy if they get permission from supervisors.

Truncale, now a defense attorney, gave an example of a client who was twice convicted of intending to sell marijuana. "I had to explain to him that should he ever, ever, ever possess even half an ounce of pot in the future, he will go to jail for life if the prosecutor is required to process an 851 information." That is the sentencing enhancement that can be used to sentence someone with two prior drug convictions to life in prison.

Elm added that there are "hundreds of ways in the guidelines and the statutes you can increase sentencing."

Those types of life sentences were once common in federal courts. In former President Barack Obama’s final months, he commuted hundreds of federal inmates’ sentences, many of them life sentences for non-violent drug offenses.

The federal prison system, like Florida’s state prisons, doesn’t have parole, but inmates can be released early if the president commutes their sentences. Inmates can also get their sentences reduced by up to 15 percent for good behavior.

About half of the people in federal prison are serving sentences for drug crimes, according to the Prison Policy Initative, though only about 9 percent of the country’s 2.3 million incarcerated people are in federal prison. The remainder are in state prisons and local jails.

Sessions’ memo comes just as local prosecutors and police have begun seeking shorter sentences for drug crimes, said Rob Smith, director of Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project, which argues that the criminal justice system is overly punitive. "The Sessions memo reflects an approach to law enforcement that does not make communities safer or healthier. … This sort of re-ignites the war on drugs that has failed so miserably and has been a mistake for communities, and it is a mistake for taxpayers, and it will not make people safer."

The Jacksonville State Attorney’s Office said that the change in policy won’t affect how often local prosecutors refer cases to the federal office.

Tampa’s and Orlando’s newly elected state attorneys signed an open letter that called Sessions’ memo an "unnecessary and unfortunate return to past ‘tough on crime’ practices." The letter was signed by 31 current and former prosecutors.

Lucius Couloute, an analyst with the Prison Policy Initiative, said the memo will lead "to prison overcrowding and the sort of ramifications that come from that. … It’s going in the wrong direction both morally and from a policy perspective. It’s extremely costly to incarcerate so many people for such a long time."

NEW ATTORNEYs GENERAL USUALLY CHANGE POLICIES

It has become standard procedure for new attorneys general to write memos that change how federal prosecutors bring cases.

Attorneys general in the last four administrations gave new instructions to prosecutors. A 1993 memo said charges should be based on "an individual assessment," and memos in 1989 and 2003 were similar to Sessions’, in that they required prosecutors seek the most serious charges.

But more recently, former attorney general Eric Holder told prosecutors not to seek sentencing enhancements unless necessary and not to use the threat of those enhancements to get defendants to plead to crimes. That was the first time an attorney general told prosecutors what charges and what sentencing enhancements they should avoid, according to University of North Carolina law professor Carissa Hessick.

Sessions’ new memo effectively serves as a return to the 2003 memo, though perhaps not as severe because Sessions allows prosecutors to seek exceptions. He wrote he wanted prosecutors to seek maximum sentences "with the goal of achieving just and consistent results," a similar rationale to that given in the 2003 memo.

Truncale, who was a federal prosecutor under the similar 1989 and 2003 charging memos, said requiring prosecutors give up their discretion is disrespectful. "Judges should be judges. Prosecutors should be prosecutors. They should be able to use their God-given abilities to make judgments.

"I don’t see it as any more than a political decision and that’s all it is. There’s no correlation between minimum mandatory sentences and sentence enhancements … that has any effect on crime. It unfairly applies not to the kingpins, but the insignificant defendants."

MEMO’S IMPACT REMAINS TO BE SEEN

The new memo and the Middle District’s letter don’t say how plea deals will work in the future or if prosecutors will be allowed to grant leniency.

Plea deals are fundamental to the federal courts. Guilty pleas made up more than 97 percent of convictions from October 2013 through September 2014, according to a recent Bureau of Justice Statistics report.

Hessick said she still thinks individual attorneys will influence how charges are brought. "It’s fair to say the Sessions memo represents a change in policy. But it’s still too soon to say how that change in policy is going to play out."

President Donald Trump hasn’t yet named any attorney nominees for Florida’s three districts, but Sen. Marco Rubio recently changed the process for nominating attorneys. Nominees used to go through a nonpartisan judicial nominating commission. Rubio stopped that, and now Rubio and Sen. Bill Nelson will make recommendations to the president, and the president will ultimately decide.