FEDERALIZING CRIME

Ironically, conservatives are expanding federal power.

"You don't have to make a federal case out of it."

That old saw pays respect to the elevated status of cases that come before
the federal judiciary, which was provided for in the Constitution to tend
to the legal business of the national government.

The federal courts were never meant to duplicate state courts, but the
federal courts have in recent years seen steady growth in criminal cases,
mostly for illegal drugs, which is threatening to overwhelm their resources
and, worse, change the role of the federal judiciary.

As U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt explains on Page 2 of this section, the
proliferation of drug cases is accompanied by a new sentencing formula
mandated by Congress that has reduced federal judges to automated
sentencing machines, not to mention necessitating a tripling of federal
prison capacity.

All this is the result of an annual test of manhood on crime, which
escalates with dueling rhetoric from both political parties and the White
House, to toughen penalties and create new federal crimes, thus treading on
turf belonging to state courts.

This process of federalizing criminal law is a fundamental change in the
nature of courts in the United States.

Ironically, this expansion of federal-court jurisdiction comes from a
Congress ruled by conservatives who allegedly believe in a limited federal
government. And it comes at the very time that Congress refuses to give
the federal judiciary adequate resources: Despite increasing caseloads,
Congress has authorized no new trial judges in eight years.

If Congress continues making every crime a federal crime, creating super
drug courts without giving them adequate resources, the net effect will be
to diminish the federal courts' capacity to do the work intended by the
framers. And the idea of making a federal case of something will take on
an entirely new meaning. It will be a joke.