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Hail to the Chief and the fascinating future of Eighth Amendment jurisprudence

By Douglas A. Berman

As I indicated in my Graham crackers post yesterday, I see Chief Justice Roberts' concurrence in Graham to be fascinating on many levels (full Graham opinion is here). Let me explain a bit more, and then in essence give the last word to Justice Thomas to highlight why the Chief's work in Graham makes the potential future of the Eighth Amendment perhaps even more fascinating. First and perhaps most important, Chief Justice Roberts' Graham concurrence shows, yet again, that he is an independent and unpredictable thinker (and thus a potential swing vote) on challenging sentencing issues that reach the Court.  Serious sentencing fans already know that Justice Alito is almost always going to vote with the prosecution in criminal cases that divide the Court, and early evidence suggests that Justice Sotomayor will be a predictably consistent vote for criminal defendants in tough cases...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on May 18, 2010 (boomark / email).