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Dahlia

By Melody Evans and Kirk Redmond

Both Gall and Kimbrough were argued yesterday before the Supreme Court, and reports from the argument sound as if district courts will have true sentencing discretion, guidelines be damned (or at least marginalized), and the appellate courts will truly have a secondary role, sort of, I don't know, call it appellate review, rather than standing in as the actual sentencer. SCOTUSblog said:In fact, it also was Justice Breyer who summed up the task the Court confronted in back-to-back arguments in Gall v. U.S. (06-7949) and Kimbrough v. U.S. (06-6330), saying that, by the end of the day, the Court needed to hear the words it could use in a ruling that would ?lead to considerable discretion? for sentencing judges, ?but not totally.? While he said that ?one of the major thrusts? of the Court?s past rulings was that judges should ?follow the Guidelines,? even if they were not mandatory, it seemed clear that that admonition was losing some of its force with colleagues...continue to full post

Full post as published by Kansas Federal Defender on October 03, 2007 (boomark / email).