by TChris

Congress must believe that federal judges, left to their own devices, will seize every opportunity to impose lenient, compassionate sentences upon those convicted of federal crimes. First it hogtied sentencing discretion by forcing judges to follow rigid guidelines. Then, in response to those rare occasions on which judges departed down from a guideline sentence to avoid an unjustly harsh result, Congress enacted the Feeney Amendment, further restricting their ability to impose fair sentences and requiring them to tattle on themselves when they do.

Since Republican administrations have chosen federal judges in 15 out of the last 23 years, Congress must think all those liberal Republican-picked judges are just too compassionate. But no judge of any political persuasion likes to have Congress meddling in judicial business. Judges inhabit a separate and equal branch of government, after all, and they know it. And they're mad.

"Feeney makes judges go from being 'the pinnacle' of the plea-bargaining process to being merely 'a nuisance,'" complains U.S. District Judge William Young, the chief federal trial judge in Massachusetts. He sees the amendment as further proof that Congress wants to vitiate the judiciary's role in sentencing while maintaining the aura of judicial independence and power. "Congress doesn't want to get rid of [the] symbolism [of judge-inspired sentences] because that conveys to our people that there has been judgment, that there has been reflection," Young adds.

Chief Justice Rehnquist isn't one of the liberal judges that Congress imagines to be running amuck in the judiciary, but he let Congress know that he doesn't like being ignored. Congress didn't bother to ask the judges what they thought of the Feeney Amendment before enacting it. Not a bright idea, Congress. Guess who gets to decide if your law is constitutional?