Attorney General John Ashcroft held a news conference Thursday to tell us it's a done deal. The state of Virginia will get first shot at trying to kill accused snipers John Muhammed and John Malvo. The feds have dropped their charges.

Here's what John Ashccroft, the man who runs our "Justice" Department, does Thursday. He drops the federal charges against the accused snipers so that they no longer have a right to their federally appointed counsel who can refuse to allow them to be interrogated in their absence. He arranges for the two to be charged in separate capital cases in different Virginia counties and separately driven to a Virginia county jail. Because they are not yet represented by state defenders, the cops are allowed to interrogate them at will.

He calls a news conference but won't tell us why he charged the two suspects in separate cases with separate killings or why he is using multiple legal theories. He bypasses Maryland, the state that suffered the most, in favor of Virginia, the state most likely to extract the ultimate penalty--death. He declares that the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for them, even though they haven't yet had a trial or been found guilty and even though one is only 17. His message is: Malvo may not be old enough to vote, get married, drink alcohol or own real estate, but he's old enough to be killed.

Justice occurs when we provide the accused with a fair trial, competent counsel and strict adherence to their consitutional rights. Injustice occurs when we allow passion and prejudice to override the guarantees of fairness our system provides to even the worst offender among us.

John Ashcroft is not running the Department of Justice but a Department of Injustice.