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SCOTUS apparently still not interested in reconsidering Almendarez-Torres

By Douglas A. Berman

A helpful reader highlighted to me that among the cases in which the Supreme Court denied cert this morning were Ayala-Segoviano v. United States, 10-5296, and Vazquez v. United States, 10-6117.  Those case are notable for Sixth Amendment fans because, as noted in this prior post, (1) the Justices had  called for a response from the government with respect to these two petitions, which urged reconsideration of the Almendarez-Torres prior conviction exception to Apprendi, and (2) the Court had thrice relisted these cases from its January cert conferences. Based on the relists, the folks at SCOTUSblog were speculating that a cert grant was possible or that there might be at least a dissent from the denial of cert in the works.  But now it appears that the relists were just a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing: both cases resulted in one-line cert denieds today and nothing more...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on February 22, 2011 (boomark / email).