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SCOTUS certification in Juvenile Male: a passive virture that only a Bickel fan could love?

By Douglas A. Berman

The SCOTUS ruling today concerning the calculation of good-time credits in Bareber v. Thomas (basics here, comments here) is clearly the biggest sentencing story of the day.  But I cannot help but be really intrigued by the Supreme Court's per curiam decision in  in US v. Juvenile Male to deal with a complicated sex offender issue by certifying a question to the Montana Supreme Court (basics here).  Helpfully, Lyle Denniston has this post with a helpful explanation of the basic factual background of Juvenile Male and the Court's certification maneuver.  Disappointingly, Lyle's post does not indicate when was the last time SCOTUS decided to deal with a cert petition by certifying a question to a state Supreme Court, nor does it speculate just why the Justices concluded why certification rather than a simple cert denied was the approach adopted here...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on June 07, 2010 (boomark / email).