ASHCROFT TELLS PROSECUTORS TO KEEP TABS ON LENIENT SENTENCING

ASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered federal prosecutors
across the country to become more aggressive in reporting to the Justice
Department cases in which federal judges impose lighter sentences than
called for in federal sentencing guidelines.

The directive, contained in a July 28 memo to prosecutors from Ashcroft, is
the latest salvo in an escalating battle over how much discretion federal
judges should have in handing down sentences in criminal cases. The more
extensive reporting could lay the groundwork for the Justice Department to
appeal many more of those sentencing decisions than it has in the past.

The Ashcroft memo amended a section of the United States Attorneys' Manual
that previously said that federal prosecutors had to report to the Justice
Department only sentences that the prosecutors had objected to and wished
to appeal. In the new directive, prosecutors were told to report all
so-called ''downward departure'' sentencing decisions that meet certain
criteria.

The effect of the change will be to shift most decisions on whether to
appeal a sentence that is less than called for in the sentencing guidelines
from federal prosecutors to Justice Department lawyers in Washington.

Ashcroft's critics reacted angrily to the memo, which was first reported by
the Wall Street Journal. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of
Massachusetts, accused Ashcroft of engaging in an ''ongoing attack on
judicial independence'' and of requiring federal prosecutors ''to
participate in the establishment of a blacklist of judges who impose lesser
sentences than those recommended by the sentencing guidelines.''

Justice Department lawyers, who had championed even tougher measures to
limit judicial discretion in sentencing, say the change was needed because
some judges have become more willing to ignore sentencing guidelines. The
fact that nearly all departures from the guidelines resulted in more
lenient sentences further angered Ashcroft and conservative-minded
attorneys, officials said.

Justice spokesman Mark Corallo said that in the past, federal prosecutors
in Washington were alerted to problematic sentences on an ''ad hoc'' basis.
By requiring US attorney's offices to report the lighter sentences in a
systematic way, Corallo said, Ashcroft and his advisers will be able to
identify judges and jurisdictions that deviate from legislative mandates on
sentencing.

Congress set the stage for the latest showdown over sentencing practices in
April when it adopted an amendment to the ''Amber alert'' legislation on
child abductions. The amendment, crafted and pushed by the Justice
Department, restricted the ability of federal judges to depart from the
sentencing standards and made it easier to appeal and overturn ''downward
departures.''

Chief Justice William Rehnquist, the American Bar Association, and others
strongly objected to the amendment. In a letter to Senator Patrick Leahy,
Democrat of Vermont, Rehnquist said that the measure ''would seriously
impair the ability of courts to impose just and reasonable sentences.''

According to statistics compiled by the US Sentencing Commission, 35
percent of the sentences handed down in federal court in fiscal year 2001
fell below the range set in the sentencing guidelines. Almost half of those
involved plea bargain agreements or other cases of ''substantial
assistance'' to prosecutors, but 18 percent of the ''downward departures''
were for other reasons. The Justice Department appealed only 19 of more
than 11,000 ''downward departure'' sentencing decisions by judges.

In his memo to prosecutors, Ashcroft quoted approvingly from a May 5 speech
by Rehnquist in which the chief justice said it was up to Congress to set
sentencing policies. The memo did not quote another section of the same
speech in which Rehnquist said that gathering information on sentencing
practices could help Congress make decisions, but also ''could amount to an
unwarranted and ill-considered effort to intimidate individual judges in
the performance of their judicial duties.''