Blakely back in the headlines

After an interesting hiatus in media coverage, the reporters are back on the Blakely story. And today we get interesting views on divergent efforts to handle federal sentencings until greater guidance on the guidelines' constitutionality comes from the Supreme Court.

Specifically, this article from Indiana provides more background on ND Indiana Chief Judge Robert Miller's decision to deny the local US Attorney's motion seeking to delay all sentencings. And this editorial from the Munster Times praises Judge Miller's decision saying "justice should not be delayed."

But then this article reports on Mississippi US District Judge David Bramlette's decision to continue all of his federal sentencing cases "until the Supreme Court has given some guidance on Blakely." And this article, while suggesting that New Jersey US District Judge Anne E. Thompson may delay the sentencing of a former financial advisor Alexis Arlett, canvasses different perspectives on this period of Blakely uncertainty and notes that "for Arlett's victims, any more delay is likely to be met with skepticism."

Meanwhile, this article discusses more broadly the post-Blakely challenges for federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania, and this article details how state prosecutors in Washington are struggling with the Blakely aftermath. And this article notes how Blakely might have an impact on the upcoming federal sentencing of Frank Quattrone, the investment banker convicted of obstructing a government probe.

In addition, new commentary on Blakely, Booker and Fanfan can be found on Findlaw, which has thoughtful pieces by Professor Vikram Amar and commentator Ed Lazarus. And though Benjamin Wittes' article on Blakely for the October 2004 issue of The Atlantic Monthly requires a subscription to retrieve on-line, here you can see a snippet of the article and a contributor's quote that Blakely is "the single most irresponsible decision in the modern history of the Supreme Court."