The "First Step Act," which if passed will loosen some mandatory minimum sentencing laws, is "politically a win-win situation" that probably would not have happened if Jeff Sessions was still attorney general, Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano said Thursday.
"This is an unbelievable unification of both needles of the ideological spectrum to do the right thing," Napolitano told Fox News' "Fox and Friends."
"It couldn't happen under Barack Obama. Probably wouldn't happen if Jeff Sessions were attorney general."
Further, with minimum mandatory sentencing, judges have very little discretion, in which they must check boxes on a spreadsheet to come up with a bottom line number that says where a person should go to jail and for how long.
"There is no greater obstacle to justice and sentencing than minimum mandatory sentences," said Napolitano, as judges do not have the option to keep nonviolent offenders from serving long sentences.
However, "old line prosecutors" such as Sessions "hate this," as "they think it is too soft on people. Judges need the opportunity to evaluate."
On Thursday, Trump strongly supported the bipartisan measure, which many conservatives oppose.
He said it includes "reasonable sentencing reforms while keeping dangerous and violent criminals off our streets...I’ll be waiting with a pen."