The morning’s Booker reports

Today’s papers have an array of interesting stories about the impact of Booker on federal sentencing developments:

• This story from Detroit reports on the sentencing of a school official sentenced to 80 months’ imprisonment in a fraud case.  Repeating a developing pattern noted here and here, this sentence was a bit below the calculated guideline range, but much more severe that the probationary sentence being sought by the defense.

• This story from Houston reports on the appeal in the Fifth Circuit of former Dynegy executive Jamie Olis, whose sentence was increased to 24 years based on judicial fact-finding.  Right after Booker, I suggested here that this tough sentence (which has garnered significant media attention) seems especially questionable in light of the parsimony requirement that now controls application of 3553(a) at federal sentencing.

• This story also from Houston reports that US District Judge Ewing Werlein has “declared moot the makeshift sentencing hearing held before jurors” in the Enron Nigerian barge case last November.  (Background details on that proceeding are here and here.)  My instinct is to say the result of the Nigerian Barge “sentencing trial” should still be relevant to advisory guideline calculation, but it will now be especially interesting to see how this sentencing gets handled in March.