August 16, 2003
Asscroft's war on federal judges
Attorney General John Ashcroft continues to look for new ways to lock up even more of our people. If this country is so free, how come we have so many of our citizens in prison for non-violent and often victimless crimes? From Elaine Cassels Civil Liberties Watch:
With a little help from Congress, John Ashcroft has mounted a new assault on the Constitution: He wants to control federal judges--and his own prosecutors. As with so much of what Ashcroft does, his rationale is riddled with hyperbole, lies, and half truths. What's the truth about sentencing that Ashcroft does not want you to know?
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This spring, the PROTECT Act was signed into law. While it is famous for containing the federal version of the "Amber alert," it also included another important provision relating to federal criminal sentencing.
That provision directs the U.S. Sentencing Commission to amend the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines "to ensure that the incidence of downward departures are substantially reduced." (The Sentencing Guidelines apply to all criminal sentences meted out in federal court, and dramatically constrain judges' sentencing discretion. Judges can choose a "downward departure" - imposing a sentence below the range that Guidelines prescribe - only in limited circumstances.)
On July 28, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a memorandum to all federal prosecutors outlining the Department of Justice's policies with respect to downward departures, in light of the PROTECT Act. It states that prosecutors should not "acquiesce" to departures except in rare occurrences. In addition, when a judge imposes a departure over the prosecutor's objections, the memo requires the prosecutor, within 14 days, to report the departure to DOJ. In short, DOJ's departure policy is no policy at all.
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In its state and federal prisons, combined, America incarcerates approximately 1 out of every 143 of its residents (over 2.1 million people). In comparison, England, Italy, France and Germany are only about 1 out of every 1,000. The federal inmate population now exceeds that of any single state. And this is largely due to Congress's Draconian mandatory minimum sentencing laws.
Meanwhile, though you would never know it from the PROTECT Act, downward departures do not mean that federal judges are disobeying the law because they are "soft on crime." The truth is quite to the contrary.
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