Federal judges freed from sentencing rules

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

Both were powerful state senators. Both were found guilty of fraud. And both submitted reams of letters from supporters who hailed their good deeds as public servants.

Pennsylvania's Vincent J. Fumo, convicted of all 137 counts against him, will soon head off to prison for 41/2 years. New Jersey's Wayne Bryant, who was found guilty of 12 charges, was sentenced Friday to four years behind bars.

While prosecutors had sought longer sentences for both politicians, the cases highlight a kind of back-to-the-future event in the criminal-justice system: the return of discretion in federal sentencing since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that once-mandatory guidelines are merely advisory.

"We're certainly back to much more subjective and idiosyncratic and discretionary sentencing," said Edward Ohlbaum, a law professor at Temple University who said the prosecutors' expected appeal of Fumo's sentence may well open the next chapter in the debate about how to punish corrupt politicians.

The high court's decision in 2005 that the guidelines are merely guidelines gutted about two decades of federal policy that aimed to achieve greater uniformity and eliminate disparity in sentencings.

Arbitrary justice?