« Tough discussions in California about how to handle serious juve offenders | Main | Lots of interesting prison and prisoner law activity by SCOTUS today »

January 24, 2011

Should Justice Scalia urge Congress members to work on Booker and ACCA fixes at the inaugural Conservative Constitutional Seminar?

As detailed in this New York Times piece, "United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is scheduled to speak Monday on Capitol Hill in a closed-door session with a group of conservative lawmakers that has drawn scrutiny for its ideological tone."  The piece properly notes that it "is not unusual for Supreme Court justices and members of Congress to mingle," and I generally think it is beneficial, not sinister, for judges and justices to speak to legislators about constitutional history and principles.

While various pundits and politicos are complaining about Justice Scalia's willingness to accept an invitation to speak from the Tea Party Caucus, I am hopeful that the Justice will use this opportunity to get legislators to pay more attention to problematic parts of the federal sentencing system.  Justice Scalia has long been a vocal constitutional critic of many parts of the the federal sentencing system (from Mistretta to Almendarez-Torres to Booker), and I hope he helps members of Congress better appreciate jury trial rights and the importance of a constitutionally sound federal sentencing structure. (It would also be great if he would at least briefly channel Justice Alito to explain to federal legislators why the Armed Career Criminal Act is in desparate need of a rewrite.)

January 24, 2011 at 09:43 AM | Permalink

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451574769e20148c7f29f07970c

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Should Justice Scalia urge Congress members to work on Booker and ACCA fixes at the inaugural Conservative Constitutional Seminar?:

Comments

Thank you very much for keeping me up to date.

Posted by: Health Blog | Jan 26, 2011 7:13:15 AM

Post a comment

In the body of your email, please indicate if you are a professor, student, prosecutor, defense attorney, etc. so I can gain a sense of who is reading my blog. Thank you, DAB