Recapping recent circuit rulings

Supreme Court transitions and rumors are, not surprisingly, garnering much attention these days; even this blog is subject to SCOTUS mania with recent posts about Justice O’Connor, CJ Rehnquist and SCOTUS’s capital jurisprudence and cert choices.  But, with the High Court apparently disinclined to take another Blakely/Booker case ASAP (basics here, commentary here and here), we shouldn’t overlook the reality that lower courts, and especially the federal circuit courts, are primarily going to define the shape of the post-Blakely/Booker world.  And, as detailed in the summary of recent posts below, the circuit courts have been giving a notable shape to that world of late:

• First Circuit says Crawford does not apply at sentencing
• Second Circuit on scope of prior conviction exception
• Big Booker twosome from the 7th Circuit
• Great Harris test case from the 7th Circuit
• Eighth Circuit to reconsider reasonableness en banc
• Trying to keep up with the Eighth
• Ninth Circuit says Blakely not retroactive
• Two of note on Booker from the 11th Circuit

Readers should recall that the federal defender blogs, which are assembled here, are especially valuable resources for commentary on important Booker rulings.  Recently, the Second Circuit Blog, the Seventh Circuit Blog, and the Ninth Circuit Blog have been especially active, with Bill Theis here asserting that the Seventh Circuit’s recent decisions “do much to unravel Booker,” and Steve Sady here calling the Ninth Circuit’s retroactivity ruling “ripe for en banc review.”