Gall and Kimbrough SCOTUS argument wrap-up

Thanks to this post at How Appealing, everyone can quickly catch up with major newspaper coverage of yesterday’s oral arguments in the two Booker reasonableness cases.  This editorial from the Washington Post puts an interesting spin on what the take-away should be from the Kimbrough case:

By the end of yesterday’s Supreme Court argument in Kimbrough v. U.S., two things seemed clear.  First, thousands of defendants charged with crack cocaine offenses will continue to face irrationally long sentences.  Second, the justices probably will move further down a path that will lead to the slow, painful death of the federal sentencing guidelines.

Also, this law.com coverage rightly highlights that Justice Scalia had the line of the day during the Kimbrough argument: “Indeed, it might be quite impossible to achieve uniformity through advisory guidelines, which is why Congress made them mandatory.”

Wrap-up of recent blog coverage of Gall and Kimbrough:

• Debating discretion: time for oral argument in Gall and Kimbrough
• First-cut reactions to the Gall transcript
• First-cut reactions to the Kimbrough transcript
• A fitting take on SCOTUS sentencing cases fit to be tied
• Is Gall the most important SCOTUS sentencing case?
• Should Kimbrough be vacated and remanded given USSC amendments and SG concessions?
• Am I foolish to dream about consensus in Gall and Kimbrough?