Dan Abrams
Let local U.S. attorneys do their jobs
newsandopinion.com | This week Attorney General Ashcroft directed all federal prosecutors to report judges who impose lighter sentences than those recommended in federal sentencing guidelines.
THE GOAL? The attorney general's office says to apply the law evenly in different jurisdictions.
The effect is to allow Washington to make the decisions on whether to appeal. So, a drug dealer, for example, in Minnesota with 10 kilos of cocaine will get the same sentence as a 10-kilo drug dealer in New York. Sounds good.
The problem, it's the local U.S. attorneys who know the case and the judges best, and this means that effectively they're taken out of the loop.
Facts differ. A drug king pin caught with 10 kilos shouldn't get the same sentence as his abused girlfriend who only did it because he threatened her. And if uniformity is truly the goal, why aren't they concerned with judges who stray above the guidelines?
There's a new law in the books and among other things, encourages the Justice Department to establish objective criteria for deciding when to appeal, but this is going well beyond that — and it's not the first time Attorney General Ashcroft has micromanaged the rank and file. His office stepped in on a number of death penalty cases using the same reasoning, uniformity, telling U.S. attorneys they must seek the death penalty in cases where the local prosecutors didn't think it was appropriate. Even though in one case it meant losing the cooperation of a defendant who was willing to testify in other cases in exchange for a life sentence.
Bottom line, this week I received calls from current and former federal prosecutor friends and law school classmates who are furious, and since it's they, not the attorney general, who are arguing these cases day in and day out.
I say leave them to do their jobs. |
