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The "mire" and (slow-moving) "train wreck" that is federal criminal history sentencing

By Douglas A. Berman

In recent months, I have not blogged much about the lower-court mess that constitutes federal sentencing law and policy concerning the use of a defendant's state criminal history as an aggravating sentencing factor.  Part of the reason for not discussing the lower-court mess has been the Supreme Court's recent efforts to try to clean up some of the mess through its rulings in James and Logan and Begay and Rodriquez and Chambers (all of which have come down over the last two years).  But the mess is hardly going away. Notably, Justice Alito wrote separately in Chambersin order "to emphasize that only Congress can rescue the federal courts from the mire into which" federal statutes and SCOTUS jurisprudence has cast federal law.  And today, though a separate opinion in US v...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on March 16, 2009 (boomark / email).