REHNQUIST SPEAKS OUT

In unusually strong language, Chief Justice William Rehnquist has asked
Congress to repeal a law it passed last year that restricts judges'
sentencing discretion. And he was particularly critical of efforts by
Attorney General John Ashcroft and House Republicans to identify and
monitor judges who depart from federal sentencing guidelines, a ham-handed
way of trying to browbeat judges into imposing stricter sentences.

Rehnquist was referring to what has become known as the Feeney Amendment,
after its sponsor, Rep. Tom Feeney, a Florida Republican.

The amendment orders the United States Sentencing Commission to write new
rules designed to "ensure" that there's a reduction in the number of times
federal judges hand down sentences in criminal cases that are more lenient
than called for in federal sentencing guidelines.

But what really sticks in the craw is Congress' additional order to the
commission to maintain records on each judge's sentencing patterns and send
those records to the U.S. Attorney General and ultimately the judiciary
committees in the U.S. House and Senate.

In his year-end report on the judiciary, Rehnquist said the monitoring
"could appear to be an unwarranted and ill-considered effort to intimidate
individual judges in the performance of their duties."

He need not have used the conditional. The monitoring is indeed unwarranted
and ill-considered. We can only hope that no federal judge will be so
intimidated.

The sentencing restrictions were added to an anti-crime bill last April
with little discussion or debate. And, said Rehnquist, it happened "without
any consideration of the views of the judiciary."

Because of the pay, the workload and the onerous confirmation process,
attracting qualified jurists to the federal bench may soon be a real problem.

It will only be made worse by Congress' weakening their authority and
conservative ideologues' peering over their shoulders. The law, by
attempting to enforce rigid adherence to sentencing guidelines, effectively
puts more sentencing power in the hands of prosecutors, and it also strains
the quality of official mercy.

Rehnquist is himself a conservative; certainly he's no one's idea of a
bleeding-heart liberal. And he's backed in his opposition to this law by
the Judicial Conference, the organization representing the federal judiciary.

At no time did Congress or the Justice Department, which supports the new
law, ever prove a need for this legislation.

The returning Congress should heed the chief justice's words and the
judiciary's wishes and repeal the curbs on sentencing.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told the
New York Times he has introduced a bill that would do exactly that. Even
though Kennedy's is the minority party in the Senate, we hope he is able to
build bi-partisan support for the repeal.