LIMITING JUDGES ISN'T THE WAY TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF JUSTICE

When Congress passed a bill earlier this month establishing a national
alert system for missing children, it included provisions that will take
away much of judges' discretion in sentencing federal criminals.

The restrictions received little debate or publicity, but they would make
significant changes in the way criminals are sentenced in federal court.

And those changes wouldn't be good. They would take away the ability of
judges to assess each crime and each criminal according to unique
circumstances. It would take sentencing decisions away from these trained
legal professionals and subject them to stricter formulas.

The bill would require the federal sentencing commission to reduce the
opportunities judges have to impose sentences lower than the minimum
recommended in federal guidelines.

That may sound good. After all, why should a judge give a criminal a
sentence that is less than the minimum for his crime?

But judges do so in specific circumstances. For instance, when a drug
dealer's girlfriend, who has had little or nothing to do with his dealing,
gets caught up in his arrest, the judge can give her a lighter sentence.

The bill also changes several legal rules that will reduce the flexibility
of trial judges in sentencing.

U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Fla., sponsored the bill. "Do you make punishment
fit the crime? Or do you make the punishment fit the arbitrary wishes of
individual judges in individual cases?" he asked the New York Times.

But that is a false choice. In truth, the way to make the punishment fit
the crime is to appoint smart federal judges who can wisely assess all the
factors involved in each case and devise an appropriate sentence.

Congress won't make the punishment fit the crime if it insists on having a
certain set sentence for each crime. That prohibits judges from making
individual sentences fit individual crimes.

President Bush should veto the bill. He should ask Congress to send him a
clean bill establishing a national missing child alert system, one without
the unnecessary baggage.