More Ashcroft antics via the Washington Post:

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft has ordered U.S. attorneys across the country to become much more aggressive in reporting to the Justice Department cases in which federal judges impose lighter sentences than called for in sentencing guidelines.

The directive, contained in a July 28 memo 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 will lay the groundwork for the Justice Department to appeal many more of those sentencing decisions than it has.

Some federal judges have spoken out forcefully against what many of them see as a congressional and Justice Department assault on their independence. U.S. District Judge John S. Martin Jr. resigned from a federal court in Manhattan in June and accused Congress of attempting "to intimidate judges."

"For a judge to be deprived of the ability to consider all of the factors that go into formulating a just sentence is completely at odds with the sentencing philosophy that has been the hallmark of the American system of justice," Martin wrote in an op-ed page article in the New York Times.

So much for judicial independence. Apparently, John Ashcroft knows better than everyone who to damn to hell (Arabs) and who to let off easy (Halliburton). So no need for that checks and balances thing.