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The Federal Sentencing Guidelines are dead, long live the federal sentencing guidelines!

By Douglas A. Berman

I just received these medical notices from the Sentencing Inquirer (a little-known, long-dormant publication from the Kane estate):OBITUARY:  After an extended illness, the rigid Federal Sentencing Guidelines were taken off life-support on June 4, 2008 by the First Circuit and Fifth Circuit.  Astute diagnosis revealed a Sixth Amendment illness in 2000, and the Guidelines appeared doomed when taking a turn for the worse in summer 2004.  Radical reconstructive surgery in early 2005 by an active-liberty doctor (who had previously help birth the Guidelines), along with extensive nursing by federal circuit courts, enabled the rigid Guidelines to have nearly three more years of life.  But near-fatal blows suffered in late 2007 put the Guidelines on life support, and decisions by courts that had previously been energetic nursemaids prompted this official death notice...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on June 05, 2008 (boomark / email).