ASHCROFT TAMPERING WITH CHECKS, BALANCES

Attorney General John Ashcroft has asked his prosecutors to
report to him any federal judges who on their own - in other words,
not as part of a plea bargain - impose sentences that are more lenient
than the federal sentencing guidelines.

Not coincidentally a group of House Republicans allied with the very
conservative and very activist majority leader, Tom DeLay, have formed
the Working Group on Judicial Accountability to monitor and expose
federal judges they suspect of being too lenient.

It would be naive to regard these actions as a simple gathering of
facts. Dispensing with such niceties as the separation of powers,
Ashcroft and his like-minded friends in the House would like to
intimidate federal judges into imposing the sentences they think
should be imposed.

The founders gave us an independent judiciary to withstand just this
sort of attempted meddling by the executive and the legislative
branches, but the House has indicated a disturbing willingness to go
beyond browbeating.

The federal sentencing guidelines are intended to bring uniformity to
the punishment of crimes by laying down a range of sentences. The
judges might depart from the guidelines, but for many crimes,
particularly drugs, they are limited by mandatory minimum sentences.

As Chief Justice William Rehnquist has pointed out, Congress rushes to
enact mandatory minimums to show it is 'tough on crime' without regard
for the judicial consequences let alone any standards of fairness in
sentencing. Many believe the guidelines themselves are too harsh and
15 years overdue for revision.

In politics, for every action there is always an opposite, if not
always equal, reaction, and the American Bar Association will now look
at whether mandatory minimum prison terms should be abolished
altogether and whether federal sentencing guidelines should be relaxed.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee to the high court, told
the ABA, "I can accept neither the necessity nor the wisdom of federal
mandatory minimum sentences. In too many cases, mandatory minimum
sentences are unwise or unjust."