A legal eulogy for the Claiborne case
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has this new article, entitled “Death leads to dismissal of key Supreme Court case,” that discusses the legal aftermation of the death of Mario Claiborne. Here are excerpts:
Investigators are still sorting out why Mario Claiborne was following a stolen pickup last week and just how the pursuit led to gunfire and Claiborne’s death. But the killing has created other legal twists, as it forced the dismissal of Claiborne’s closely watched case before the U.S. Supreme Court, which was expected to rule within the next few weeks. J ustices were to clarify how much discretion federal judges have when applying sentencing guidelines….
Claiborne’s case already had traveled an improbable road by reaching the Supreme Court, where oral arguments were held in February. Thousands of people seek review by the high court and few succeed. And of those who get the court’s attention, even fewer are killed before their case is heard. “Once people make it to the Supreme Court, we don’t tend to lose them,” said Tom Goldstein, who heads the Supreme Court practice of Washington law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.
The case had been watched across the country and potentially could have affected thousands of criminal defendants and a growing backlog of cases awaiting resolution of the issue. About 9,800 of the more than 70,000 defendants sentenced in federal court in fiscal year 2006 got similar departures from guideline sentences, according to Justice Department statistics. “You’ve got a lot of different parties that see this as having a far-reaching effect,” [Assistant U.S. Attorney Cris] Stevens said.
Some related posts: