U.S. SUPREME COURT: FAIRER SENTENCING

NO MATTER HOW MUCH Congress may want to mete out severe, mandatory
sentences in criminal cases, it can't circumvent the institution that
protects the individual from the state in criminal cases: the jury.

That is the heart of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Congress' system of
mandatory federal sentencing guidelines violates the Sixth Amendment's
guarantee of trial by jury. The 5-4 decision this week converts mandatory
guidelines into advisory ones, expanding the discretion of judges and
promoting fairer sentences.

The court weighed the two-decade-old mandatory sentencing scheme against
the centuries-old protection of trial by jury. Quite properly, the
Constitution trumped the modern search for more certainty, uniformity and
severity in sentencing.

In recent years, a five-justice majority composed of both liberals and
conservatives insisted that any fact that affects a criminal sentence must
be found true by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, or admitted by the
defendant. The role of the jury is to find facts; the role of the judge is
to rule on the law.

Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, said that the federal
sentencing guidelines violated the Sixth Amendment because the judge was
required to lengthen sentences based on facts never presented to juries.
Justice Stevens would have tried to fix the problem by requiring that all
facts relating to the sentence be proved at trial.

But Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that the best way to fix the problem was
to make the sentencing guidelines advisory rather than mandatory. Justice
Breyer said his solution was closer to what Congress would have wanted. He
should know because he helped write the law as a Senate lawyer.

It now is up to Congress to make any changes consistent with the right to a
jury trial. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Arlen
Specter, R-Pa., said he would undertake a careful revision of the law. Much
of the criticism of the decision was along partisan lines, with Republicans
criticizing the court for overreaching. Judges and defense lawyers
generally praised the decision for returning to judges some of the
discretion in sentencing that they had lost under the federal scheme.

As the split on the court shows, this was not a liberal or conservative
decision. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas joined in the
majority decision ruling the guidelines unconstitutional. The right of
trial by jury isn't a partisan issue. It is a cherished protection of
individual freedom against state abuse.