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Interesting Justices' voting line-up in Dolan restitution case

By Douglas A. Berman

The Supreme Court has handed down its opinion this morning in the Dolan restitution case, and in doing so it has shown yet again that sentencing issues are so much more interesting than so many other SCOTUS matters because how the Justices will vote is so unpredictable.  Here is the early SCOTUSblog report on Dolan: We have the first opinion, 09-367, Dolan v. United States.  Breyer writes for the Court, affirming the lower court. The vote is 5-4, with the Chief Justice dissenting joined by Stevens, Scalia, and Kennedy The Court holds that a sentencing court that has missed the 90-day deadline may nevertheless order restitution, at least in some circumstances. The Dolan opinion is available here, and I am excited to discover how Justice Breyer managed to get Justices Alito, Ginsburg, Sotomayor and Thomas all to agree on what he had to say.continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on June 14, 2010 (boomark / email).