With strong prompting from the Justice Department, the issues regarding the validity of federal and state sentencing guidelines generated by the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Blakely v. Washington decision are going to be teed up again soon in the Supreme Court. Here are my previous posts on the aftermath of the Blakely decision.
Early this week, the U.S. Supreme Court Justices are expected to grant expedited review of at least one of several post-Blakely lower court rulings that present the issue of whether federal sentencing guidelines are unconstitutional in light of the Court’s decision in Blakely. That ruling struck down a Washington state sentencing system similar to sentencing in over a dozen states and in the federal system, and requires that juries determine facts that increase a defendant’s sentence.
When a landmark high court decision is such as Blakely is handed down, the Supreme Court usually allows a reasonable amount of time (i.e., several years) to address follow-up issues that arise before the Court re-addresses the core issue. However, Blakely unleashed most U.S. District Judges’ pent-up antipathy for the sentencing guidelines and their corresponding limitations on the exercise of judicial discretion in federal sentencing. Thus, with many judges devising their own methods for coping with Blakely in regard to sentencing matters, the Justice Department is pushing the Supreme Court for an unusually quick reassessment of the issues raised in Blakely.
The SCOTUS clarification of the impact of Blakely is being followed particularly closely by the criminal defense bar in Houston, which is already dealing with new indictments in Enron-related criminal cases as the Justice Department scurries to comply with the requirements of Blakely. Moreover, the sad case of Jamie Olis — in which the absurdly long 25 year sentence was issued prior to Blakely — could also be affected by that decision and its progeny.
Ohio State University law professor Douglas Berman‘s blog Sentencing Law and Policy is the best website for keeping up with analysis of post-Blakely developments.