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Some notable cert petitions to watch

By Douglas A. Berman

After another mid-season break, the Supreme Court start the always exciting final stretch of the Term with a cert conference today.  Though we may not hear the results until Monday, the folks at SCOTUSblog in this post spotlight these two notable cases for criminal justice fans that have a good chance of becoming merits cases in the fall: Docket: 08-769Title: United States v. StevensIssue: Is 18 U.S.C. 48, on depictions of  animal cruelty, facially invalid under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment? Docket: 08-833Title:  Oliver v. QuartermanIssue:  Does juror consultation of the Bible during sentencing deliberations  deprive a defendant of Sixth Amendment rights and what standard of proof should apply in evaluating the possible prejudice to the defendant? In addition, I believe this cert conference also has at least one crack retroactivity petition and a few other federal sentencing cases that could possibly get the Justices' attention.continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 17, 2009 (boomark / email).