I do not think that elected officials (or, more precisely, officials who will someday stand for election again) should have any power to interfere in the administration of justice. Laws should be made by people answerable to the electorate, but they should be enforced by people answerable only to the law.

Here in the UK we used to be close to a separation of legal and political systems, but over the last decade and a bit the Home Secretary has gained increased powers to interfere in sentencing. I think this is a very bad thing indeed.

In an American context

:-Judges, prosecutors, police officers and the like should be appointed by independent bodies, not elected.

:-The president should not have the power to issue pardons; if anyone should it should be the Supreme Court, and probably no-one should.

:-Congress, instead of the power to impeach the president for crimes, should have (if anything) the power to remove him from office for political reasons. Now, actually, this is what it currently has, but it's always presented as being a criminal rather than a political power, which causes all sorts of confusion; this should be made clear.

:-Congressional districting and the like should be determined by a non-partisan body with a clear set of guidelines, not of politicians horse-trading.

:-Anyone who has served as a judge or prosecutor within the last N years, for some fairly high value of N, should be barred from running for elected office.

:-The arbiter of what happens to the Guantanamo detainees should be the courts, not the government.

And, to offset all the things I am complaining about, I will point out that the Supreme Court justices not being answerable to any politician is an excellent thing.