Another major SCOTUS morning

Though not quite yet another manic Monday, the Supreme Court has gotten the week off to an interesting start with some notable cert grants this morning.  This post at SCOTUSblog provides the highlights. The biggest news is a cert grant in Hamden to consider the constitutionality of the special military tribunals to try war crimes charges against terrorist suspects, but also quite noteworthy is a pair of grants to explore whether state courts may refuse to hear claims by foreign nationals of violations of the Vienna Convention on consular rights.  How Appealing already has some of the early news coverage here.

For sentencing fans, the order list includes one Booker GVR, as well as a whole bunch of cert. denieds.  Interestingly, among the cert. denieds, I do not see the Gomez case from Tennessee, which I believe was discussed at the Justices’ private conference last Friday.  Lots of background on Gomez can be found in this post, and the lack of any action on the case today adds to the intrigue surrounding whether, when and how the Supreme Court may take up one of the state supreme court rulings that have avoided the application of Blakely.