Sentencing Round-Up
By Scott covered the important points in his post about the Supreme Court’s decision today in Gall and Kimbrough. Boiled down, the Court in these cases says that it meant what it said in Booker: the Sentencing Guidelines are just that — suggestions — and federal judges are not mandated to apply them. The decision today was in a crack sentencing case; it provides hope that more and more judges will be able to show their disdain for the crack/cocaine disparity. But as Hogan and I both noted in comments to Scott’s post, Gall and Kimbrough should not be understood as paving the way to the end of the war on (some classes of people who use some) drugs. The Crack/Cocaine disparity was legislatively created and will stick around until Congress dismantles it. Which doesn’t look like it’s going to happen anytime soon.
That said, it’s definitely a good sign that seven of the nine justices of the Supreme Court — including the Chief Justice and Justice Scalia — are not prepared to hold federal judges to Congress’s misguided guidelines.
More posts about Gall and Kimbrough from around the blogosphere can be found here, here, here and here.