US Judges Scrutinized Over Lenient Sentencing

Ashcroft cracks down on liberal judges

By David Rennie in Washington
The Telegraph (UK)
(Filed: 08/08/2003)

John Ashcroft, the United States attorney general, has ordered a campaign against liberal judges - provoking outrage from the American legal establishment.

Mr Ashcroft, a Christian conservative sworn to uphold "biblical values", has told district attorneys to report to Washington all federal court sentences falling short of those demanded by tough new guidelines.

"The Department of Justice has a solemn obligation to ensure that laws concerning criminal sentencing are faithfully, fairly and consistently enforced," Mr Ashcroft wrote in a memorandum on July 28 that was leaked this week.

Mr Ashcroft, who also told prosecutors to launch many more appeals against lenient sentences, has been accused by critics of seeking to bully judges.

The Ashcroft memo took its lead from a recent congressional measure - the "Feeney amendment" - that made it easier for appeal courts to lengthen sentences deemed too soft and called for over-lenient judges to be reported to Congress.

This drew sharp fire from many judges. The head of the US supreme court, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, an appointee of Richard Nixon, said the measure would "seriously impair the ability of courts to impose just and reasonable sentences".

One Manhattan-based federal judge, John Martin, announced his resignation in June in protest at attempts "to intimidate judges".

He attacked the new directive, telling the Wall Street Journal: "The Justice Department is telling us that every defendant should be treated the same way; that there should be no flexibility to deal with individuals."

In Congress, John Conyers, the senior Democrat on the House judiciary committee, accused Mr Ashcroft of a "scary" effort to compile an "enemy's list" of judges he feels are too lenient.

Justice Department officials said Mr Ashcroft's new instructions were simply part of a drive to remove wide regional discrepancies from the court system. A spokesman said the directive was "an effort to make sure that someone convicted of a crime in California is treated no differently than a person who is convicted of the same crime in Massachusetts".

Mr Ashcroft has also pushed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in the 12 states where capital punishment is barred.

"Against Lenient Sentences"

Bull Shiite-no, it is "shake down citizens"

This is not about Soft Sentences. This is about increasing the leverage that the local US Attorney has over suspects/defendants before there is even a trial.
Note that it was the DOJ who came up with the Feeney amendment, "Mr. Feeney himself says he was simply the "messenger" of the amendment bearing his name, which was drafted by two Justice Department officials.

WTF:
The Congress, "our representatives" are merely the "Messengers" of Ashcroft?????

Was that flushing sound "Our" Constitution going down the Crapper?

Most criminal cases end in a plea bargain. So to extract the maximum number of convictions it is in the local prosecutor's interest to "overcharge".

Saying "these crimes here total up to 30 years, but if I let you plead guilty to a lesser charge it is only 3 years" have much greater force, on the innocent or the guilty, if he can add "Though the statutes did not have this in mind for 30 years if the jury finds you guilty,Feeney/Ahscroft makes the judge give you the whole 30" increases the extortionate effect.

And remember these people have not been convicted of anything.

When Congress uses words like "reform", "improvement", "technical correction", "equity" they are trying to push bills that often contain none of these qualities, but can be embraced by the ignorant or trusting.

There are tens of thousands of criminal provisions on the books. It is up to the US Attorney to use good judgment and exercise discretion in deciding what "crimes" to prosecute and what charges to bring. But a US Attorney has the personal goal of making his own record look as good as possible. So there are only two ways a US attorney can be dissuaded from overcharging:

1. the jurors will say, "Life for *that*, give me a freeking break." But jurors are voting in the dark, they do not know what the sentence is for "Count 3 of the indictment". And they are not allowed to be told. That is why we often hear of jurors saying that had they only known what the mandatory sentence was, they never would have voted the way they did.

2. the judge who hears what the case is about, and not merely reads what statute the defendant is charged under will say, "I know what this case is about and the sentence was never meant by the legislature to cover a case like this.

This "Reform" by Feeney/ Ashcroft does away with the power of the judge to make those judgments. Hello, isn't "Judge" supposed to be part of the job description"?

It greatly increases the power of the prosecutors to either overcharge, or to extort from a possibly innocent defendant a plea to a lesser sentence, so as to avoid draconian penalties if the prosecutor charges him under a bevy of harsh laws not intended to cover the fact pattern.

That there are too many such laws and that a prosecutor can pick his victim and then find the law to nail him is well known. Justice Jackson, a former US Attorney General and later Justice of the Supreme court wrote:

"With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some sort on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who committed it, it is a question of picking the man, and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him."

Also, this Feeneyn amendment was tacked on to the Amber Bill. Oh, that it fool 'em,it must be okay, after all "It's for the children."

And "Our" president, the "Conservative" George Bush signed this?

If the founding fathers came back they would have many worth targets to put their boots up.

Well I see you stand firmly on the side of revolving door prison sentences.
It appears difficult to wade through this Ashcroft attack, but if I understand the article, while ignoring the obvious hyperbole, Ashcroft wants to know WHY lighter sentences than the legally imposed minimums are meeted out to convicted criminals.
The judge is required to explain his reasoning.
We are talking about the sentences of people who have already received their plea bargained conviction.
I am just a regular citizen, used to sifting through the story to get the truth, as opposed to the writers opinion, but it seems a reasonable requirement to demand of the legal system.
All are treated equally before the law,and if some are treated more mildly or more harshly, the judge better have a valid reason to do so.
Ashcroft seems to strike terror in the hearts of those who prefer to think law and justice are, or should be, separate systems.
I like him for that reason alone.

"Well I see you stand firmly on the side of revolving door prison sentences."

Well if you can "see" that,
then you are as blind as you are stupid.

In order to depart the court must under current rules state its reasons in the judgment. Departures are primarily for substantial assistance to the government. Ashcroft is objecting to non-government requested departures such as dimished capacity whjere the defendant was bi-polar at the time of the offense yet competent-very difficult to prove and rare.

Ah, the typical reply by one who feels that any questioning of your stated position is done by stupid people.
Did you even bother to read my entire post?

OK
I read that several times, but I dont understand your point.Can you restate your position?

THIS is the OPPOSITE of what is happening with Roy Moore, Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who was ordered to remove the 10-COMMANDMENTS from the Court of the State of Alabama
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/960131/posts

In the above case we have a FEDERAL JUDGE (his own personal beliefs) going against the WILL of the PEOPLE.

Now,In this case with ASHCROFT though, we have the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT attempting to CONTROL the judiciary which was what the framers of the Constitution were warning about and attempting to PREVENT.

Now we have the complete circle...

The leftist radicals usurping the power of the judiciary to force radical socialism/communism on us....

But we also have the radical-RIGHT (Fascists?) using the power of the Executive branch to force those beliefs.

Waiting in the wings are the LEADERS of both factions (in the house & senate) in the midst of cowardly "representatives" of the majority of Americans.\

So....

What do we do now?

"Ah, the typical reply "

Yes, doubtless *you* receive many of the same tenor.

He won't need any reporting from the Southern District of Illinois. The U.S. Attorney won't have to waste a shred of paper to report problems. (They could serve as judge, jury and executioner) Though it is a mostly rural or small town district, sentences are double the national average. When asked why the courts in this particular district sentence defendants to double the national average (read, rubber stamp the Department of Justice position), one judge stated that we have a lot of drug cases and the convergence of two interstate highways. What a laugh!! Glad they don't have any drugs or highways in Chicago or Brooklyn.

The district also has a judge who is number one out of the 600+ federal judges in denying defendants a downward departure. You'd be better off representing the Dukes in Hazard County.

I will have to reread the Mistretta case which involved the US Sentencing Commission, and up held the Constitutionality of the arragngement against a balance of powers argument. This sure seem like an infringemnet on the power of Article Three Judges.

I recall that this whole "sentencing standards" stuff started out because minorities were said to be put in the slam for more time than honkies for the same offense.

So the aim was to be uniform, from district to district, and from defendant to defendant. It has now become a Procrustes bed to be constructed by the Prosecutor without any ability of the judges to "judge."

As Orwell said in Animal Farm some animals or more equal than others. With the U.S.Attorney having the discretion whether to file sentence enhancements for prior drug convictions, they can manipulate sentences as they want. One thing that burned me the other day was the fact that Ashcroft himself approved a 7 year deal for a terrorist. As long as the U.S.Attorney has unfettered discretion as to what offense to charge and what enhancements to seek, they can manipulate sentences much more than any commie-lib, bleeding heart judge ever dreamed. That is in part why I find this latest issue a red herring when it is claimed that these reports are to seek "more fair" sentences. Hogwash!!

Ashcroft approves a seven year trip for a terrorist while most federal drug offenses carry a mandatory ten year minimum makes me think he is being a tad bit of a hypocrite looking for "soft" sentencing judges.

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