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Monday, August 11, 2003
Los Angeles Times: Home Edition
Editorial Page: COMMENTARY
Under Ashcroft,
Justice is Blind and Handcuffed
His
'blacklist' aims at judges and prosecutors who exercise discretion on
sentences.
By: JONATHAN TURLEY
a
law professor at George Washington Law School
In
matters of faith and law, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft generally distrusts
the role of discretion — it is uniformity, if not rigidity, that
defines his vision. Over the last two years, Ashcroft has radically
reshaped the Justice Department, pushing aside suspected moderates and
promoting young extremists who will not hesitate in carrying out his
orders. He now has turned to the federal courts to compel uniformity,
ordering prosecutors, in a July 28 memo, to report any judge who imposes
a criminal sentence lighter than what is called for by federal
guidelines.
Ashcroft is seeking to prevent
judges from tailoring sentences to fit individual crimes. If
successful, sentences in the United States would be meted out with all
the speed and care involved in calculating a mortgage rate on the
Internet. Judges are resisting
this robotic approach to sentencing and are fighting to preserve a
tradition of judicial discretion that runs to the early days of our
country. In a system without such discretion, pleas for mercy or
extenuating circumstances would be considered immaterial to justice.
At issue are 1984 guidelines that established a set of mandatory minimum
sentences for federal crimes. Both
conservative and liberal judges have long denounced these guidelines as
imposing unduly long sentences and reducing the ability of courts to
fashion punishments that fit particular cases. The sentences are so
severe that some judges have resigned rather than impose a 10-year
mandatory minimum prison term for first-time drug offenders. Most
judges have struggled to work within the guidelines to fashion more just
sentences.
For instance, a federal judge may use a "downward departure"
from the rules to reduce a sentence if there are mitigating factors,
such as cooperation with the government. Such
reductions in sentences, which are used in 35% of cases annually, are
often supported by prosecutors. According to the American Bar Assn.,
prosecutors have appealed only 19 of more than 11,000 such sentence
reductions. Likewise, some of the nation's most conservative
jurists have opposed restrictions on the authority of judges to
"depart." Chief
Justice William Rehnquist, for example, warned Congress that
restrictions "would seriously impair the ability of courts to
impose just and reasonable sentences."
It is not only judicial discretion but prosecutorial discretion that
Ashcroft is seeking to curtail. He has effectively removed the question
of sentencing from the local decisions of prosecutors to his centralized
control. The message to both judges and prosecutors is obvious. If a
prosecutor favors a reduction in sentencing, he or she will now be
identified (with the offending judge) to Ashcroft. Few prosecutors will
risk Ashcroft's ire. Instead, they will refuse to deal with the obvious
inequities in sentencing and stick to the guidelines. Denounced
as a kind of blacklisting, the new policy is particularly troubling
because of Ashcroft's history of attacking judges who don't fit his
vision of justice. One of the most notorious incidents was
addressed in his close confirmation fight.
As a senator from Missouri, Ashcroft blocked the elevation of Missouri
state Supreme Court Justice Ronnie White to the federal Court of
Appeals. A widely respected African American jurist (he recently was
made chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court), White was considered
a natural for the federal court. Ashcroft, however, led a vicious
campaign against White's confirmation and labeled the judge as
"pro-criminal." In particular, Ashcroft insisted that White
was hostile to the death penalty, even though White had voted to uphold
41 out of 59 death sentences that came before him.
Now, Ashcroft believes that
federal judges who lower sentences are violating the intent of the
federal law. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that such decisions
are the very essence of
independent judicial review and has
held that the sentencing guidelines anticipate such departures. Justice
Anthony Kennedy, a conservative on criminal matters, held that this
country had a long "tradition for the sentencing judge to consider
every convicted person as an individual and every case as a unique study
in human failings that sometimes mitigated, sometimes magnify, the crime
and punishment."
Ashcroft would replace this tradition with a system that imposed
sentences without variation and without understanding. Indeed, in his
memo to U.S. attorneys, Ashcroft quotes Rehnquist as establishing that
it is Congress, not the courts, that set sentencing policy. However, Ashcroft
misrepresented Rehnquist's comments by omitting Rehnquist's further
statement that efforts to gather sentencing records "could amount
to an unwarranted and ill-considered effort to intimidate individual
judges in the performance of their judicial duties."
The country now faces a choice between two visions of justice. Ashcroft
wants judges to share his view of defendants as statistics rather than
individuals. However, justice is
found in the very details that Ashcroft wants to ignore in
sentencing. In this system of
forced ignorance, justice would be blind not to prejudice but to
principle.
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LETTER
TO THE EDITOR COLUMN
August 11, 2003
John
Ashcroft Sets His Sights on Sin
Re "U.S. Indicts Porn Sellers, Vowing
Extensive Attack" and "Ashcroft Objects to Lenient
Jurists," Aug. 8: Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft must be quite
bored. How wonderful that Al Qaeda is a distant memory, the
anthrax attacks in the U.S. are wrapped up, that the Department
of Homeland Security has closed shop because of the arrests of
all terrorists posing a domestic threat to the U.S. and that
Saudi links to the World Trade Center attacks have been exposed
to a grateful nation.
Why else would Ashcroft be directing the full weight of the U.S.
Justice Department against a couple of adult video distributors,
toward crafting a "hit list" targeting U.S. judges who
aren't as draconian as he'd like or launching attacks on medical
marijuana proponents, who, it should be noted, are helping
terminally ill patients under the auspices of California law.
Things must be very quiet around the offices of the attorney
general of the United States for them to be focusing on such
poppycock. Any chance that we can launch a ballot initiative to
remove Ashcroft from office?
Jeff Estes
Long Beach
Regarding Friday's articles about Ashcroft and
the Justice Department's continued attempts to curtail the
freedom we Americans cherish so dearly: It
appears that Ashcroft cannot tolerate diversity of thought,
interest or entertainment, and will not relent from his pursuit
of the "arch-criminals" he perceives exist in
libraries, bookstores, adult entertainment arenas and/or public
areas.
I believe Ashcroft will not be satisfied until we all march
along behind him in step to his dogmas, opinions and prejudices.
If this is a country
truly based on freedoms to explore and think independently, we
cannot allow anyone in any position to control our minds.
Ashcroft and the Justice Department must not be allowed to
subvert our constitutional freedoms.
Esther Youtan
Tarzana |
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Copyright (c) 2003 Times Mirror Company
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