Republicans are always complaining that Bill Clinton has stolen their best issues, and crime is their Exhibit No. 1. Sure enough, in his State of the Union address, the president boasted that his administration is pursuing a " strategy of more police, tougher punishment, and smarter prevention." But instead of throwing up their hands in despair, Republicans should instead be asking, very loudly: Why does an administration that claims to want tougher punishment nominate to the federal bench judges who don't? Indeed, Republicans now have a sterling opportunity to deny a particularly egregious such judge her spot on the federal bench.
That judge is Frederica Massiah-Jackson of Philadelphia, who has been nominated by Clinton to the U.S. District Court for eastern Pennsylvania. The full Senate will vote on her nomination this month. Will Republicans exploit this matchless opportunity to explain why judicial activism is bad and why irresponsible judges should not be confirmed?
In her years on the local bench, Massiah-Jackson has compiled a record of astonishing hostility to police and prosecutors. In one notorious instance a decade ago, she blew the cover of two undercover police officers in her courtroom, saying, "Take a good look at these guys, and be careful out there." She has compiled an acquittal rate twice the average for other Philadelphia judges. She has consistently imposed lenient sentences -- in one case immediately paroling a mugger who had slashed his victim on the neck, elbow, and hands with a razor. The mandatory minimum for robbery with a deadly weapon is four years" imprisonment; a higher court overturned Massiah-Jackson saying she erroneously held that the razor was not a deadly weapon.
Massiah-Jackson is a classic "root causes" liberal who doesn't believe in incarceration. As she argued in a 1994 speech, "the criminal justice system cannot reach through persistent poverty, joblessness, street cultures, teen pregnancies, low self-esteem, alcohol and drugs, and then 'cure' the . . . problems of society. . . . Locking folks up is a belated and expensive response to a social crisis."
The National Fraternal Order of Police has come out against the nomination, as has the Philadelphia FOP, the Pennsylvania District Attorney's Association, and, most tellingly, Democrat Lynne Abraham, Philadelphia's district attorney. Abraham wrote to Specter on Jan. 8, saying, "This nominee's judicial service is replete with instances of demonstrated leniency towards criminals, an adversarial attitude towards police, and disrespect and a hostile attitude towards prosecutors unmatched by any other present or former jurist with whom I am familiar."
For some reason, Sen. Specter remains a supporter of the nomination, but given the impressive roster of opponents, the only question left to be answered is how much covering fire other Republican senators think they need before poking their heads up out of the foxhole and voting the nominee down.