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Lots of crime, but little punishment, in new SCOTUS grants

By Douglas A. Berman

As detailed in this post from SCOTUSblog, the Supreme Court today added "ten new cases to its decision docket for the year .... [and of] those ten, seven involved issues of criminal law."  But, as this accounting from Lyle Denniston highlights, few of these new SCOTUS criminal law cases involve sentencing issues:   Among the new criminal cases is a test of the scope of the right to a speedy trial for a poor individual who is being represented by a public defender (Vermont v. Brillon, 08-88), a plea for the Court to clarify how federal appeals courts are to handle prosecutors? violations of plea bargains when the violation was not challenged at the trial (the Court limited the grant in Puckett  v. U.S., 07-9712, to one of two issues raised), and a claim that a voluntary confession made after a suspect?s arrest on federal charges but before he appears before a magistrate must be suppressed when there was a delay before that appearance occurs (Corley v...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on October 01, 2008 (boomark / email).