A view that Ameline is not so sublime

Though I like the Ninth Circuit’s Ameline case as a facilitator of rhyming post titles, Steven Kalar over at the Ninth Circuit Blog is not too keen on the substance of Ameline‘s approach to Booker plain error (basics here, commentary here).  In this post, Steven complains about the Ninth Circuit’s decision to adopt “the Second Circuit’s economic, expedient, and arguably unconstitutional ‘quick look’ procedure for Booker pipeline cases.” 

In an interesting part of an interesting post, Steven urges defense attorneys to contest “any district court ‘quick look’ done outside of the presence of the defendant, based on a defendant’s structural right to allocution.”  He notes that “[a]lthough the allocution issue was pressed aggressively at oral argument, the Ninth entirely avoids the issue entirely in its en banc decision.”  Steven says to look “for upcoming sample briefing and discussion of this challenge in the 9th Circuit blog and the ND Cal FPD web page in the upcoming weeks.”  (Notably, the ND Cal FPD website already has a number of sample Booker and Shepard memos and briefs, and a lot of other materials, available at this briefbank page.)