Ashcroft’s plea bargain one-size-fits-none

One-size-fits-all clothing tends not to fit anyone. It either bunches, bags or constricts,… One-size-fits-all clothing tends not to fit anyone. It either bunches, bags or constricts, thus tending to be unflattering, and is not worth the time or money.

One-size-fits-all sentencing is much the same – unfitting and inexact. And that’s what U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft is trying to create.

In an order issued by the Justice Department, Ashcroft attempts to eliminate many forms of plea bargaining in federal cases. Plea bargaining allows defendants to plead guilty to lesser offenses and accept lighter prison sentences, rather than go to trial.

This will prove useless at best, harmful at worst. First, it will send more people to trial, and juries, knowing of these new, harsher standards, may be more hesitant to convict. And those they convict will be in prison a long, long time.

Most federal crimes are white-collar – nonviolent ones that involve a dash of embezzlement or a smattering of money laundering. Not that these should be taken lightly; they can leave the victims penniless.

Still, jail time does not cure this pennilessness. Rather than instituting some means of compensating victims, Ashcroft wants to give money launderers and their ilk more jail-time than they receive through plea bargaining.

Jail is supposed to rehabilitate rather than simply censure. Wouldn’t punishing more people for less time achieve this end, and punishing fewer people for more time defeat it?

Prosecutors use plea bargains to save time and money – part of that lovely “speedy justice” thing the United States so prides itself on – and to ensure that criminals are punished, even for lesser crimes. Putting limits on plea bargaining limits prosecutorial discretion, and further mechanizes the justice system.

This move comes with plenty of opposition, particularly from former U.S. Attorney J. Alan Johnson. “The effect [is] … turning judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys into a bunch of clerks,” he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in a Sept. 30 article.

To ensure a fair trial, checks and balances between the Executive and Judicial Branches – the former overseeing prosecutors and the latter the judges – should be effective. Limiting judicial power, particularly the power to set sentences, via the Justice Department circumvents one of those crucial checks.

Ashcroft should not be making prosecutors follow a paint-by-numbers system for trying cases. For the punishment to fit the crime, each case should be treated with individual care and consideration – and not done with orders handed down from Ashcroft.