Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States on January 20, 2009. During his first two years in office, Obama signed several significant pieces of criminal justice legislation, including an expansion of existing hate crimes legislation and the Fair Sentencing Act.

His administration also released a statement in 2009 indicating that federal authorities would not raid medical marijuana dispensaries, a very different stance than the two previous presidential administrations had taken. Still, other domestic issues, such as the economy and healthcare, took ...

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