SENTENCING PANEL LEAVES JUDGES WITH SOME ROOM FOR LENIENCY

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Sentencing Commission, under pressure from
Congress and the Justice Department to restrict judges from handing
down sentences milder than federal guidelines, recommended some new
restrictions -- but stopped short of a blanket ban.

Among the recommendations, which will go to Congress: Guilty pleas or
plea bargains are no longer grounds for a sentence shorter than the
guidelines dictate; nor are restitution to victims by the accused,
community ties, mitigating circumstances or drug or alcohol dependence.
But the Justice Department's representative, Eric Jaso, rebuked the
panel and said the recommendations would have little or no effect on
federal judges who ignore the guidelines.

Even as the panel voted, staff members worked to clear pathways in the
aisles of the commission's offices here, which are laden with hundreds
of boxes of judges' sentencing-report records that have been coming in
daily since Congress required more specific record keeping in April.
The office gets about 5,000 new reports each month from judges.
Attorney General John Ashcroft also has directed U.S. attorneys to
file their own reports to Washington when judges depart downward from
the sentencing guidelines.

The commission's report was the latest round in an escalating battle
among three branches of government, with some administration and
congressional officials on one side and the federal judiciary on the
other. After the Protect Act, adopted in April, required the
commission to issue new limits on judges' discretion, judges voted
last month to support counter legislation to restore more of their
discretion in sentencing.

"The problem in sentencing is that sentences are too high, not too low
- -- time and time again, low-level, nonviolent drug offenders are
sentenced to decades in prison," Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan,
the House Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat, said through a
spokesman. Phoenix federal public defender Jon Sands said "the
commission went too far" in eliminating categories like restitution
and mitigating circumstances. "Look at all the things they've taken
off the table," he said.

Congress can accept the recommendations without action, allowing them
to become law, or it can reject them. Or Congress can pass new
sentencing laws without the input of the commission, as it did earlier
this year. It was clear at the public meeting Wednesday that it is
likely the Justice Department would lobby Congress to go further.

Mr. Jaso said in the meeting that "the commission has failed" in
addressing its charge from Congress. He said he was doubtful the
group, made up of seven presidentially appointed criminal-justice
professionals including four sitting judges, would be given another
chance -- noting Congress members already had flirted with a stronger
ban on judges departing from the guidelines.

"They have still left exceptions that a lenient judge can drive a
truck through," said Rep. Tom Feeney, the Florida Republican who
introduced legislation directing the Sentencing Commission to tighten
the guidelines. He said he would push for a stronger ban.

The tense nature of the commission's deliberations was evident. Though
the recommendations passed 7-0, the chairwoman, U.S. Circuit Judge
Diana E. Murphy of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, had to ask
several times if any member of the panel would be the one to make a
motion to accept them.

Judge Murphy said after the meeting that the wide-ranging opposition
from all sides "sums up the position of the Sentencing Commission in
the world."

The Protect Act has been responsible for a number of changes within
the justice system, including mandating that Mr. Ashcroft order his
prosecutors to oppose sentences shorter than guidelines through
appeals and limit plea bargains.