Surplusage split

As previously discussed here, last week in US v. Mutchler, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18053 (S.D. Iowa, Sept. 09, 2004), District Judge Robert Pratt granted a defense motion to strike allegations of aggravating factors in a “Blakely-ized” superseding indictment. But around the same time, in US v. Baert, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17911 (D. Maine Sept. 8, 2004), District Judge Brock Hornby (of Fanfan fame) refused to strike allegations pertinent to sentencing because his interpretation of Blakely requires the government to “include such allegations in order to obtain what it considers an appropriate sentence” under the guidelines.

In short, we have an understandable, but still significant, “surplusage split.”

And, interestingly, I also recently discovered that US District Judge Robert W. Gettleman, in US v. Brown, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17835 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 13, 2004), granted “defendant’s motion to dismiss indictment or, alternatively, to strike surplusage from indictment in part” based on the government’s addition of “sentencing allegations” in a superceding indictment. But, in the same order, Judge Gettleman granted, over the defendant’s “vigorous” objection, the government’s motion “to continue the trial date from August 16, 2004, to a date in the future after the court receives guidance from the US Supreme Court in US v. Booker and US v. Fanfan.” Based on the surplusage skirmish, I will leave it to others to figure out who won the battle and who won the war in Brown.