Blakely back in the news

With the Booker and Fanfan arguments now only a few days away, the press is back on the Blakely story. Howard Bashman at How Appealing has links here to SCOTUS preview articles that discuss Blakely, as well as an article about the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission's report (discussed here) and other Blakely commentary. Additional articles of interest previewing the Supreme Court term are here and here.

Appropriately, many SCOTUS preview pieces identify another sentencing case, Roper v. Simmons, in which the High Court will re-examine the constitutionality of the death penalty for offenders who were juveniles when they committed their crimes (discussed here). But most of these preview articles do not realize that another Blakely case is on the horizon: in Shepard v. US, as noted here, the defense bar will be asking the High Court to reconsider the Almendarez-Torres "prior conviction" exception to the Apprendi/Blakely rule.