Recapping a remarkable sentencing week
Though I still think the weeks surrounding the Supreme Court’s 2004 Blakely decision may have been the most remarkable for sentencing developments in modern times, this past week certainly was remarkable for so many reasons. Here is a abridged review of what make this past week so noteworthy:
SUPREME COURT BOOKER RULINGS AND COMMENTARY
- SCOTUS rules for the defendants in Gall and Kimbrough!!
- A quick take on winners and losers in Gall and Kimbrough
- A quick Justice-by-Justice review of Gall and Kimbrough
- FSG are truly advisory (even in crack cases), but what about….
- Judicial reactions, formal and informal, to Gall and Kimbrough
- The weighty guidelines question after Gall
- One (of many) tough questions after Gall and Kimbrough
- Is Kimbrough as big as Brown v. Board of Ed?
SENTENCING COMMISSION CRACK RETROACTIVITY AND COMMENTARY
- A preview of USSC crack retroactivity vote
- USSC unanimously votes to make new crack guidelines retroactive…
- Official USSC press release on crack retroactivity
- USSC’s “Reader-Friendly” version of retroactivity amendment
- Some legal particulars around crack retroactivity implementation
- Latest crack retroactivity FAQ from FAMM
- “Give them McDeath, not McLiberty”
NEW JERSEY DEATH PENALTY ABOLITION DECISION
- New Jersey on path to kill its moribund death penalty
- NJ legislature passes bill to abolish state’s death penalty
- Media wonders “what if we can no longer obsess about the death penalty”
CLEMENCY DECISIONS AND COMMENTARY
- A new batch of Bush pardons and a crack commutation
- Another bipartisan call for President Bush to commute border agent sentences
- Republican Kentucky Gov. grants many pardons and commutations
NOTABLE INDIVIDUAL SENTENCING DECISIONS