Sunday, Blakely, Sunday

The media continues to figure out how big the Blakely story is, and the increased coverage means I can and will only try to provide an occasional sampling of the Blakely media reporting (though readers should continue to send me links to news stories that are especially interesting or thoughtful).

So here goes: This article from The Illinois News Gazette discusses efforts in a local federal bank fraud case to deal with Blakely through a plea agreement waiver of Blakely rights; this story from the Richmond Times-Dispatch discusses Richmond US District Court Judge Henry Hudson’s conclusion that, after Blakely, he must “employ the guidelines as merely advisory and will utilize [his] own, independent judgment in determining the appropriate sentence to impose”; this article from the Providence Journal has a thorough review of Blakely‘s impact on Rhode Island’s federal cases; and finally, this article from the Syracuse Post-Standard has a thoughtful account of how Blakely is impacting federal cases in upstate New York and also reports that “federal judges across the country have been e-mailing each other to figure out the impact of [Blakely] on the sentencings of criminals.” (Aside: How clever to use technology to share information about Blakely

Helpfully, there are also now many good sources for getting a somewhat broader perspective on Blakely developments. For example, Newsweek now has available this thoughtful piece, which locates the Blakely story within a broader sentencing reform landscape. And Ken Lammers over at CrimLaw nicely reviews and comments upon various post-Blakely views of the federal guidelines in this post. And finally Jason Hernandez over at the Blakely Blog continues to do a very fine job collecting and linking to many Blakley news stories and other materials.

Of course, I will be reading the papers this Sunday morning while watching a star-studded leaderboard battle for the Claret Jug at The British Open. Let’s see if Ernie Els can vindicate my (not so bold) prediction here that he was the player to beat. I expect my favorite golf blog will have a lot to say when The Open is all said and done.