Pubdate: Tue, 12 Aug 2003
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)
t's+blacklist&highlight=2%2Cdrug
Copyright: 2003 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Contact:  http://www.stltoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/418

MR. ASHCROFT'S BLACKLIST

ATTORNEY GENERAL John D. Ashcroft is making a list and checking it twice. 
He's going to find all the federal judges who've been naughty or nice.

In a July 28 order, Mr. Ashcroft required federal prosecutors to report 
cases where judges handed down lenient sentences. He said he was compiling 
the list in the interest of national uniformity in sentencing. But federal 
judges may be excused for fearing they'll end up with a lump of coal. 
Appearing to coddle criminals isn't a ticket to a higher court appointment.

Mr. Ashcroft's order is part of a concerted effort in Congress and the 
Justice Department to pressure judges to adhere to rigid sentencing 
guidelines. An amendment to the "Amber alert" law passed last spring 
restricted the ability of judges to impose sentences more lenient than 
those recommended in the guidelines. The House Judiciary Committee 
threatened to subpoena the records of U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum 
of Minneapolis, a critic of the sentencing guidelines. That was a 
heavy-handed threat to judicial independence.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., called the Ashcroft list a "blacklist." 
Some conservatives, including U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. 
Rehnquist, have also voiced concerns about attempts to intimidate federal 
judges. The chief justice said that gathering information about sentencing 
"could amount to an unwarranted and ill-considered effort to intimidate 
individual judges. . . ."

The law setting up mandatory minimum sentences was a compromise between 
unlikely bedfellows, Mr. Kennedy and the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C. 
The idea was to achieve greater equality and truth in sentencing, but the 
result was a grid of more than 200 boxes giving the range of sentences for 
each crime. The guidelines have come under increasing criticism for 
resulting in overly long sentences for drug crimes. Last weekend, Justice 
Anthony M. Kennedy said the system should be scrapped because the sentences 
are too long and prison costs too high.

In 1996, the Supreme Court strengthened the authority of judges to depart 
downward from the guidelines. It upheld a judge's decision to impose 
30-month sentences on the police officers who beat Rodney King, instead of 
the 70 months the guidelines would have required. Since then, more judges 
have departed downward from the guidelines, until now about a third of 
federal sentences are below the minimum.

The Justice Department appealed only 19 of the more than 11,000 downward 
departures during fiscal 2001. Mr. Ashcroft's memo suggests that will be 
changing. But the biggest impact could be in the unseen decisions of 
federal prosecutors and judges to avoid the appearance of coddling criminals.

Mr. Ashcroft has a track record from his days in the Senate of taking out 
after judges he perceives as "pro-criminal." His new memo suggests he still 
does not appreciate the vital role that independent judges play in a system 
where the courts may check the government's abuse of power.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens