ASHCROFT'S ORDER DOESN'T SERVE JUSTICE

Feeney Amendment Undermines Judges.

Attorney General John Ashcroft seems to think the Justice Department
knows better than federal judges how much time lawbreakers should
serve in prison. Ashcroft is wrong.

In a July 28 memo, first reported in the Wall Street Journal last
week, Ashcroft directed all U.S. attorneys to report any case in which
a judge issues a sentence shorter than federal minimum guidelines.
Ashcroft says he wants to know about such "downward departures," as
they are called, to ensure that criminal sentencing laws are
"faithfully, fairly and consistently enforced."

The crackdown, however, infringes on the independence of the judiciary
and pressures judges into carrying out cookie-cutter justice in which
all defendants are treated the same regardless of facts or extenuating
circumstances.

The groundwork for Ashcroft's directive to keep tabs on judges and
come after them when they deviate from proscribed sentences was laid
earlier this year, when Congress passed and President Bush signed into
law a broad child-protection act that included a provision called the
Feeney Amendment.

Florida Republican Rep. Tom Feeney told the Journal he was just the
"messenger" of the amendment, which was written by the Justice
Department. What leadership.

Conservative U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist said
the amendment will "seriously impair the ability of the courts to
impose just and responsible sentences."

The department's move also goes over the head of the U.S. Sentencing
Commission, established by Congress in 1987 to set mandatory minimum
sentences for federal crimes. In fact, the independent commission was
never notified in advance about the Feeney amendment.

"Clearly, you'd like to have had a lot more debate," Commissioner
Michael O'Neill told the Journal.

In opposing the amendment, the commission tried to get lawmakers to
embrace a reasonable approach - studying why judges have been imposing
lighter sentences - but it was rebuffed.

Democrats have since introduced a bill to undo the Feeney Amendment
until such a study is conducted, but it is unlikely to make it through
the Republican-controlled Congress.

Such a study would be interesting, considering that in fiscal year
2001 federal district judges departed downward on about 10,000
sentences, roughly as many as prosecutors themselves wanted in
exchange for defendant cooperation.

But Ashcroft isn't concerned about sentencing divergences recommended
by his prosecutors. This double standard illustrates another flaw with
the Justice Department's approach.

Ashcroft doesn't really want to see all minimum sentences enforced,
just the ones his people think fit the crime.

That's not justice.