A decision day for consensus at SCOTUS, with big cert news

In this post at SCOTUSblog, Lyle Denniston has the early news on all the Supreme Court action this morning.  Apparently the Court has cleared out all of its “easy” cases today by issuing five unanimous decisions, with the habeas decision in Fry v. Pliler being the only action in the criminal law arena.  So, more waiting for Rita and Pinetti as wel come down the Term’s stretch run.

The cert grants, however, will get federal sentencing fans very excited.  Here’s the early report from Lyle:

The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to take up at its next Term the long-standing dispute over the fairness of punishing crack cocaine crimes far more severely — 100 to 1 — than those involving cocaine powder under federal Sentencing Guidelines. It agreed to hear that issue in Kimbrough v. U.S. (06-6330).  It also agreed to take a case — also to be decided next Term — on the same Sentencing Guidelines issue that the Court had been considering in Claiborne v. U.S. before Mario Claiborne died. The new case is Gall v. U.S. (06-7949).

I will discuss Kimbrough and Gall at length in coming posts after I find out a bit more about the questions presented and the factual particulars.  I’m already giddy for next term!