FEDERAL SENTENCING GUIDELINES GIVE HIGH COURT'S RULING A CHANCE

In its ruling Wednesday on federal criminal sentencing procedures, the
U.S. Supreme Court showed it is possible to reach for the best of two
worlds. The question now is whether what the justices regard as the
best policy will prove to be within the high court's grasp.

First, the court took the right step in restoring some of the
discretion federal judges may use in sentencing defendants after a
jury verdict.

Second, the justices shored up citizens' right of trial by jury. They
did so by scrapping the mandatory rules that allowed judges to add
extra time to a prison sentence based upon facts that a jury had not
heard.

Federal judges had been operating under rules developed by Congress in
the 1980s. In effect, the Supreme Court said it was troubled that
those rules gave judges too much authority to issue tougher sentences.

The court's remedy is as controversial as it is creative: It simply
made the sentencing rules advisory rather than mandatory. That
provides the best of two worlds - rectifying a constitutional problem
with jury trials, as well as preserving sentencing guidelines that, in
large part, have been useful. Judges will be expected to consult the
sentencing rules, as before, but will be free to use more discretion
in sentencing.

In practice, the change could result in verdicts that are more just -
especially when the facts warrant a prison term shorter than under the
mandatory rules. (Drug dealers' girlfriends shouldn't be given
staggering sentences if they played little or no role in a drug operation.)

While judges still will consult the complex matrices used for
sentencing today, they will be able to practice their craft - that is,
to make their own considered judgment.

The mandatory sentencing rules were designed by Congress, in part, to
make sure judges didn't go easy on undeserving defendants. The rules
also served justice in that they tended to ensure that similar crimes
led to similar punishments.

With judges freed somewhat from their straitjacket on sentencing, it
will be vital for the federal courts to monitor whether sentences
remain fair and uniform. It wouldn't serve the nation to have
Red-State justice that differs radically from Blue-State justice. If
glaring discrepancies in sentencing do crop up, Congress will have
every right to step in.

Trouble is, too many current members of Congress would enact more
draconian mandatory sentencing rules. Judges would be able to judge -
but they'd all start to sound like the Old West's Judge Roy Bean, the
"hanging judge."

That's why Congress needs to tread lightly at this point.

It's fine for Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), the new chair of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, to consider developing "a sentencing
method that will be appropriately tough on career criminals, fair, and
consistent with constitutional requirements."

Before taking on that task, though, Congress should give the Supreme
Court's remedy for the shortcomings of the federal sentencing system a
chance to prove that it can work.