Recuenco basics

As detailed in this recent post, the Supreme Court today starts a criminal-case-heavy session with arguments this morning in Washington v. Recuenco (No. 05-83).  Recuenco will explore whether Blakely errors can be subject to harmless-error analysis or instead are structural errors.  I have here described Recuenco as a big little Blakely case, and my numerous prior posts about the case are assembled in this archive.

For more basic background on the facts and issues in Recuenco (as well as links to the parties’ briefs), check out this account of the case from the Medill folks at Northwestern.  In addition, the folks at Cornell Law School have this effective write-up of the Recuenco case that also includes a discussion and analysis section.