More great stuff from the FSG conference

As I had expected, the morning plenary panels on the last day of National Seminar on the Federal Sentencing Guidelines in Salt Lake City were stellar.  Here are two particular highlights:

1.  As emphasized by all the district judges, the reality of post-Booker sentencing varies dramatically for circuit to circuit (although such circuit variations were common before Booker, too).  Providing a dramatic capper on this reality, judge Gerald Lee of theEastern District of Virginia said simply from the audience “The guidelines are mandatory in the Fourth Circuit.”

2.  Deputy SG Michael Dreeben predicts that “Claiborne and Rita will be close votes and will be decided in the second week of June.”  I think both predictions are very sound (but certainly not certain).