Another academic view on Blakely

Two years of exciting toiling at Gannett House entails that the Harvard Law Review will always have a warm spot in my heart. And this time of year I get a bit giddy with anticipation for the HLR‘s annual Supreme Court issue. Adding to the excitement, the contents of that issue can now be seen here, and the full text of the Foreword authored by Professor Richard Pildes can be accessed here and the full text of a Case Comment on Blakely is available here.

Professor Pildes’ Foreword does not mention Blakely, even though it is concerned with issues of democratic theory that Blakely implicates. But the Case Comment provides plenty of Blakely food for thought by arguing that “the decision does not call into question sentences imposed in a regime that permits judges to depart ‘solely on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant.'”