Booker and Fanfan pre-reading guide

If Booker and Fanfan are decided today — and that is still a big “if” — there will be so many ways to examine and assess what the Supreme Court says (and does not say). Besides obviously being concerned with the basic holding and vote count, I will also be thinking about:

1. Who writes the majority opinion and any concurrences or dissents.

2. Whether the Court’s opinion discusses constitutional provisions other than the Sixth Amendment and how the Court handles precedents like Watts and McMillan and Williams.

3. Whether the Court’s opinion, directly or indirectly, speaks to the continued vitality after Blakely of recent key precedents like Almendarez-Torres and Harris (background on these issues can be found here).

4. Whether the Court’s opinion, directly or indirectly, speaks to issues relating to Blakely‘s retroactivity.

5. Whether the Court’s opinion, directly or indirectly, speaks to issues confounding state courts such as Blakely‘s applicability to consecutive sentencing determinations or the scope of the “prior conviction” exception (or the dozens of other smaller “Blakely scope” issues).

I could go on — there are also many questions about permissible remedies for current cases and advising other branches about how to handle future cases — but I am already exhausted just thinking through all the issues. What I fear most before seeing any opinion is the prospect of a deeply fractured Court creating uncertainty on even those issues it directly addresses. Here’s hoping that, no matter what the Court says, it speaks with a relatively clear voice.