Important Booker rulings from district courts

With all the non-stop Booker action in the circuits, it is easy to overlook the important Booker work still being done by the federal district courts.  I’ve not been able to track of dozens of district court habeas rulings, but I can quickly report on a few notable recent district court rulings on other issues (and previous coverage is here).

For example, Judge Cassell has covered more important post-Booker ground by thoughtfully explaining in US v. Duran, 2005 WL 395439 (D. Utah Feb. 17, 2005), why the guidelines must still be considered advisory in cases involving application of the “safety valve.”  Also quite thougthful is the work done by Judge Ellis in US v. Biheiri, 2005 WL 350585 (E.D. Va. Feb. 09, 2005), which has notable dicta on a range of post-Booker issues.

But the most notable and potentially consequential district court decision of late would seem to be US v. Greer, 2005 WL 396368 (M.D. Ga. Feb. 17, 2005), which speaks to the scope of the Almedarez-Torres prior conviction exception (here is a lot more background on this issue).  In Greer, the court holds in a 924 case that a prior violent felony was not proved to a jury and could not be used to enhance a sentence.  The Greer court reaches this conclusion because “[d]etermining the factual nature of a prior conviction is materially different from simply finding the existence of a prior conviction for recidivism purposes [and the] Court finds that the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, as interpreted in Booker and Blakely, reserves this type of factfinding for jury determination.”