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A message for Prez Obama and his legal team from his favorite Justices

By Douglas A. Berman

The most interesting jurisprudential aspect of today's Supreme Court decision in Harbison (basics here) is probably the splitting (and spitting) among the more conservative justices about how best to interpret 18 U.S.C. § 3599.  But while experts in the academy reflect on the statutory interpretation dissensus in Harbison, I hope that policy-makers in the White House reflect on the clemency consensus reflected in this paragraph toward the close of the majority's opinion: The Government?s arguments about §3599?s history and purposes are laced with the suggestion that Congress simply would not have intended to fund clemency counselfor indigent state prisoners because clemency proceedings are a matter of grace entirely distinct from judicial proceedings...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 01, 2009 (boomark / email).