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Fascinating sentencing dogs that did not end up barking in Barber

By Douglas A. Berman

The fact that many folks went to law school in order to avoid math may itself ensure that the Supreme Court's decision today in Barber v. Thomas concerning the calculation of prisoner good-time credits (basics here) does not get all the attention it merits.  More fundamentally, because the Barber ruling affirms the good-time calculation status quo, this Term's biggest sentencing sleeper case will probably go down in history as just another jurisprudential dog that could have, but in the end did not, bark in the face of modern mass incarceration.  But before sentencing fans move on, I recommend everyone ? not just sentencign fans, but everyone ? find the time to read and reflect on the opinions and the votes in Barber.  Put simply, there is a lot of "there there" in both opinionsi n Barber, and in this post I can only just start scratching the surface of what should be noticed in the Court's work with this initial post...continue to full post

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