Harvard Law Review covers some of the notable criminal justice rulings from last Term in SCOTUS issue

As true law nerds know, the November issue of the Harvard Law Review is always focused on the Supreme Court’s work in the prior Term.  And it has become somewhat of an annual tradition for me to be somewhat disappointed when the November HLR SCOTUS issue does not give considerable attention to the Court’s considerable criminal justice work.   

This year, as the full HLR SCOTUS issue reveals, criminal justice cases do get some love in the student case commentaries (and I suppose it makes sense that the Foreword and lead commentaries are focused on other topics).  But while it is heartening to see some of the noteworthy criminal cases of OT 2023 SCOTUS covered in case comments in this issue, Apprendi fans will know what I consider to be a notable ommission frin this list:

• United States v. Rahimi
• McElrath v. Georgia
• Smith v. Arizona
• City of Grants Pass v. Johnson
• Fischer v. United States

On all sorts of grounds, I think Erlinger v. US is worthy of much more attention and commentary than McElrath  Similary, since I already authored a commentary on Pulsifer v. US, it also seems to me quite note-worthy.  (And cases like Diaz v. US and Snyder v. US also seem worth a mention, too.)  Of course, I fully understand why not everyone is ever-focused on the parts of the SCOTUS docket that gets me most exited.  But that won’t keep me from this kind of annual moaning.