A reasonable analysis of the challenges of reasonableness review

Over at FindLaw is this new essay by Mark Allenbaugh and Donald Purdy discussing the Gall and Kimbrough cases. The piece is entitled “Drugs, Disparity, and Judicial Sentencing Discretion: Two Cases Invite the Roberts Court To Finally Clarify What Constitutes A Reasonable Sentence Under the Now-Advisory U.S. Sentencing Guidelines.”  Here are snippets:

During oral argument, the Court clearly was concerned about the lack of a clear substantive definition on appeal for “reasonableness” in this context.  The Court seems caught between a rock and a hard place.  A forgiving “reasonableness” standard would essentially take federal sentencing back to the pre-Guidelines era, where similarly-situated defendants could and did receive grossly disparate sentences. Yet a strict and closely-Guidelines-based reasonableness standard, conversely, would seem to simply effectively make the Guidelines mandatory once again….

Without clarification from the Court regarding both appellate “reasonableness” review and the specific meaning of the Court’s declaration that the Guidelines are now advisory, federal sentencing will become increasingly chaotic, and we will indeed see the strange “Wonderland” of sentencing Justice Scalia predicted in his dissent in Booker two years ago.