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Am I crazy to see a sentencing back-story in the Skilling ruling?

By Douglas A. Berman

As my students know, I think everything in the world (not just everything related to criminal justice) is somehow.  Consequently, I may be trying a bit too hard to find a sentencing story in the Supreme Court's decision today in Skilling and the other honest services cases it handed down this morning.  Still, even though sentencing issues are discussed in the Skilling opinions, it think it is reasonable to speculate that the very lengthy prison sentences that are now often prescribed under the federal sentencing guidelines for fraud may have played a role in the Justices' thinking. Back in the late 1980s when the Supreme Court decided the McNally case and Congress responded by creating the honest services fraud statute, even the most notorious white-collar defendants rarely got very long prison sentences and regularly could secure early release via parole...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on June 24, 2010 (boomark / email).