Joe Biden has won, happily so in my opinion. He unquestionably stands for the same core principles of American justice that most who will read this would probably embrace. Still, although he was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1987 to 1995, because he was preoccupied with other priorities while Foreign Relations Committee chair, Vice President and afterwards, Biden undoubtedly hasn't intensely focused on American justice, warts and all, for many years—particularly ever since the time he held significant responsibility for the now-notorious Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act—the "1994 Crime Bill."

Biden did acknowledge the error of that bill; he sponsored the Second Chance Act and supported the Obama-era Fair Sentencing Act. And, yes, he has the former attorney general of California as his Veep. But suppose President-elect Biden were to ask for a back of the envelope "eight things" to help repair American justice, particularly given the Trump Administration's often egregious and sometimes bizarre notions of justice that has often driven it to the brink. What should/must Biden commit to? Otherwise put, what would help return America to a normalcy that has been missing since President Trump and his attorneys general chose to become unambiguously sycophantic to the President's uncommonly partisan or political goals for the Justice Department—goals often designed to appeal to the base?

Curing the partisan nature of the Attorney General as de facto "lawyer for the president." In retrospect, Robert Kennedy should never have been President Kennedy's attorney general. As the President's brother, the inherent conflicts created by the obvious nepotism were all too apparent. Appropriately, the Congress later acted to make such an appointment unlawful. But an attorney general needn't be the president's relative to be conflicted—Attorney General Barr's unbending course of conduct has made that clear.