The Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act of 1994

the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 that imposed increased and mandatory minimum
sentences.
In 2003, Congress considered the Feeney Amendment to the PROTECT Act. This
amendment would have totally rewritten the guidelines. Among other changes, the
original amendment would have eliminated all un-enumerated downward departures
and all downward departures for family ties, diminished capacity, aberrant behavior,
educational or vocational skills, mental or emotional conditions, employment record,
good works, or overstated criminal history. Defense lawyers, law professors, current
and former Sentencing Commissioners, the President of the American Bar
Association, Chief Justice Rehnquist, and others wrote to Congress opposing the
amendment. The enacted bill limited the changes described above to crimes involving
pornography, sexual abuse, child sex, and child kidnapping and trafficking. It also raised
penalties for child pornography and child sex abuse. It also greatly increased
prosecutorial discretion and influence by limiting judges' power to depart from the
guidelines and granting prosecutors greater power over departures. For instance, it
made a prosecutorial motion a prerequisite for a three-level reduction for acceptance of
responsibility. It also instructed the Sentencing Commission to authorize four-level "fasttrack"
downward departures in illegal-reentry immigration cases upon motion of the
prosecutor.
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