More Supreme Court news and speculation

What I thought would be a quiet Friday has turned into a noteworthy day because of Supreme Court announcements.  In addition to the news that more decisions are coming Monday, the Court today granted cert. on four cases, two of which have sentencing stories. 

As always, the SCOTUSblog here has all the goods.  The Court’s decision to take Medellin v. Dretke, 04-5928, which concerns the right of foreign nationals on death row in the US to meet with a consular officer from their home country is especially noteworthy.  Because of the intersection of international law and the death penalty — which is raised by not central to the juvenile death penalty case Roper v. Simmons now before the Court (background here) — Medellin will surely get a lot of national and international attention.  Tony Mauro wrote this great Legal Times piece providing a lot of background on the case a few weeks ago.

Meanwhile, I have heard from a range of folks about my (wishful thinking?) prediction here that we may get Booker and Fanfan on Monday.  Some have given very good reasons to think the decision is coming Monday, and others have given very good reasons to think we will not see the decision until January. Most compelling was this reaction from a defense attorney (which I hope it is okay to share):

Your ivory tower is showing. I would have liked to see a relatively quick decision in Booker Booker and Fanfan provided it was well thought out. But, a decision on Dec. 13 is going to leave many defendants/prisoners, their families and assorted others in limbo until after Jan. 1 and/or ruin their holidays with bad news.

It could also trigger some Chirstmas madness for some of us defense attorneys [who have briefs due in early January]  Better a decision on Jan. 13 with an opportunity to file a supplemental brief unencumbered by the holidays.