Gearing up and taking stock

The Blakely action kicks in to high gear again this coming week, with briefs due to be filed in the Supreme Court in Booker and Fanfan by the Acting Solicitor General and the US Sentencing Commission (and perhaps others?) this Wednesday, Sept. 1. Helpfully, this article from today’s Chicago Tribune provides a broad overview of all the Blakely action over the last two months.

Meanwhile, every time I check on Westlaw or Lexis, I find more (often older) noteworthy Blakely decisions from state and federal courts. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Aponte, 2004 WL 1857129 (Pa. Aug. 19, 2004) (holding that state statute doubling statutory maximum penalty upon proof of prior conviction for a similar offense, without requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt before a jury, did not violate defendant’s due process rights); US v. Brown, 2004 WL 1879949 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 18, 2004) (granting continuance, over the defendant’s objection, based on conclusion that “the interest of justice compels a continuation of the trial because of the uncertainty of the law involving the Supreme Court’s decision in BlakelyUS v. Fotiades-Alexander, 2004 WL 1845552 (E.D. Pa., Aug. 12, 2004) (finding no Blakely violation, because “even if Blakely were to apply to the federal sentencing guidelines, [the defendant] admitted to [key] facts during the plea colloquy”).

In fact, barely two months after the Blakely decision, the on-line search engines reveal more than 250 state or federal decisions mentioning Blakely v. Washington, and I I have received at least a dozen orders mentioning Blakely that do not appear on these services. If anyone is trying to assemble a master list of Blakely decision (in state or federal courts), I would be grateful to receive (and be able to share) such a valuable document.