Editorial: Guilty! Now go celebrate

Monday, Aug. 21, 2006 | 7:21 a.m.

If a judge glared at a defendant and pronounced him guilty of all manner of heinous crimes, and then ordered him freed, it would be little different in principle from a ruling a federal judge handed down last week in regard to U.S. tobacco companies.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler lambasted the companies in a 1,742-page ruling released Thursday. The ruling responded to a 1999 lawsuit filed by the Clinton administration, which has undergone numerous filings and modifications over the years.

In the end, though, the judge ruled that the tobacco industry violated civil racketeering laws in conspiring to shield the public from information about the health effects of its products.

"Over the course of more than 50 years, defendants lied, misrepresented and deceived the American public," Kessler wrote. "They suppressed research. They destroyed documents. They manipulated the use of nicotine so as to increase and perpetuate addiction.

"They abused the legal system in order to achieve their goal - to make money with little if any regard for individual illness and suffering ..."

During those more than 50 years, millions of people have either died or suffered terribly from the effects of cigarettes and other tobacco products. Despite this fact, and despite her harsh words, however, Kessler simply ordered the tobacco companies to stop using false labels on their products, such as "light," "low tar," and "mild." She also ordered the companies to revise their advertising campaigns to reflect known facts about tobacco use.

This is not how the case began. Shortly after the Bush administration inherited it, the Justice Department, in a court filing, said tobacco companies should forfeit $280 billion. An appeals court in 2005 quashed that demand.

Subsequently an expert witness for the Justice Department testified that the tobacco companies should pay $130 billion over 25 years to fund programs for people to quit smoking. That recommendation was changed to $10 billion by then-Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum. As he was a former classmate of President Bush's at Yale University, critics inside and outside the Justice Department cried foul, suggesting White House interference. McCallum was cleared by an internal Justice Department panel and last month assumed a new position as ambassador to Australia.

In the end, Kessler, saying her hands were tied by the 2005 appeals court decision, did not even impose the $10 billion penalty. In our view, the government should appeal the case, on the grounds that the tobacco companies escaped accountability. The government should also ask that the 2005 appeals court ruling be overturned and that appropriate penalties, in the scores of billions, be imposed.