It has to be Booker and Fanfan, no?

Marty Lederman at SCOTUSblog confirms here that the Supreme Court will be issuing an opinion this coming Monday.  Thus, I am going to predict, yet again, that we are only days away from (finally) seeing an opinion in Booker and Fanfan. 

Though I have already cried wolf more times than the fabled shepard boy, and though the blogsphere has taken to blaming me for decision’s delay, I really hope this coming Monday will be the real deal on Booker and Fanfan.  I say that in part because the always-in-the-know SCOTUSblog folks say here that if we do not get the decision this coming Monday, then we will not get it until mid-January.  And I want to believe the High Court is trying its best to render a decision this year.

I have highlighted here and here and here how many different persons and institutions are eager for a decision in Booker and Fanfan.  And it is useful to recall that it has already been nearly five full months since, as detailed here, the US Congress passed a Concurrent Resolution stating “the Supreme Court of the United States should act expeditiously to resolve the current confusion and inconsistency in the Federal criminal justice system by promptly considering and ruling on the constitutionality of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.”

Moreover, there is precedent from last year for the Supreme Court completing a major “rushed” decision in December.  Last year’s rushed case was, of course, McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, which dealt with the constitutionality of the new federal campaign finance laws.  The High Court managed to issue its opinions — a total of 298 written pages!! — in that extraordinarily complicated case on December 10, 2003 before its holiday break.  Here’s hoping we get another December to remember.