Justice Kennedy lectures the Senate on sentencing realities

In this recent post, I suggested that Justice Kennedy’s view on Claiborne and Rita might be impacted by his concerns about the severity of federal guideline sentences.  Consequently, I was very intrigued to see Jan Crawford Greenburg reporting here on an extraordinary exchange between Justice Kennedy and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on sentencing issues during Justice Kennedy’s testimony before the Committee yesterday.

Fortunately, not only can everyone check out Jan’s great post, you can also watch the exchange on video at this link.  The exchange come late in a two-hour session of testimony, a little after the 1:30 mark.  The exchange starts when  when Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island new to the Judiciary Committee, asked Justice Kennedy about whether he thought, after Blakely and Booker, there is now an ideal balance between uniform sentencing rules and judicial discretion in the federal system.  Justice Kennedy’s fascinating reaction to this question cannot be readily summarized; it makes for a riveting 10 minutes that just must be watched by all sentencing fans.