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CLR note on co-defendant disparity after Booker

By Douglas A. Berman

Now available on-line is this new Columbia Law Review note titled "Equal Justice Under Law: Post-Booker, Should Federal Judges Be Able to Depart from the Federal Sentencing Guidelines to Remedy Disparity Between Codefendants' Sentences?".  Here is the piece's abstract: In the 2005 case of United States v. Booker, the Supreme Court held that the Federal Sentencing Guidelines were merely advisory and therefore no longer binding on trial judges.  Since then, some judges have based departures from the Guidelines on the finding that the disparity between codefendants? sentences is unwarranted.  Although basing a departure on this consideration was universally impermissible before Booker, most circuits have now held that consideration of codefendant disparity is a permissible basis for departure...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 28, 2009 (boomark / email).