State of the States

In her Blakely dissent, Justice O'Connor identified nine states in addition to Washington with guideline systems that could be impacted by the Blakely ruling: Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. But the rapid reaction to Blakely in states like Arizona (details here and recent news report here) and California (details here and here) and Tennessee (details here) suggested that perhaps a much larger number of states will have to grapple with Blakely's impact on their sentencing systems.

The stunning and important report from the Vera Institute today (details here) confirms that the impact of Blakely in the states is far and wide. The Vera report identifies 21 states with structured sentencing systems that could be directly impacted by Blakely, and it also notes that "Blakely has implications for other state sentencing provisions" as well. Proving this point is this article discussing the effect of Blakely in Maine (which does not appear on Vera's list of likely impacted states).

The Vera report is a must-read for all Blakely followers because of its consistently insightful analysis, which includes trenchant observations about Blakely's "potential to reshape sentencing in the United States" and about the "apparently perverse result of the Blakely ruling." The questions raised and uncertainty caused by Blakely are highlighted throughout the Vera report, which in turn makes me eager to see a promised companion report from Vera entitled "Legal Considerations for State Sentencing Systems."

Finally, though I am not sure exactly when future Vera reports are coming, I do know that additional state discussion of Blakely is imminent. Various sources have reported that the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission will release its short-term report on Blakely this Friday afternoon. Indeed, here's an article with some early sketchy details about the report.