Such an overhaul, in part, "will strengthen our hand in fighting criminals who threaten the safety and security of all Americans," Gonzales said in the speech, delivered three days before the FBI announced a slight national uptick in violent crime during 2006.
Judges, however, were livid over the proposal to limit their power. "This would require one-size-fits-all justice," said US District Judge Paul G. Cassell, chairman of the Criminal Law committee of the Judicial Conference, the judicial branch's policy-making body.
"The vast majority of the public would like the judges to make the individualized decisions needed to make these very difficult sentencing decisions," Cassell said. "Judges are the ones who look the defendants in the eyes. They hear from the victims. They hear from the prosecutors."
The debate, pitting prosecutors against jurists, has been ongoing since a 2005 Supreme Court ruling that declared the government's two decades-old sentencing guidelines unconstitutional. The ruling in United States v. Booker said judges are not required to abide by the federal guidelines -- which set mandatory minimum and maximums on sentences -- but could consider them in meting out prison time.
The Justice Department wants to return to the old system of mandatory minimum sentences, under which judges could grant leniency only in special cases. Without those required floors, Justice officials maintain that different judges could hand out widely varying penalties for the same crime.
Justice officials also point to a growing number of lighter sentences as possible proof that crime is rising because criminals are no longer cowed by strict penalties.
In the two years since the ruling, federal judges have become three times more likely to hand down prison sentences below the suggested levels, according to 2006 US Sentencing Commission data.
