Discussing Blakely in Indiana

Michael Ausbook at INCourts continues his comprehensive coverage of Blakely in Indiana with this extended post which notes a new Blakely reversal and also reports at length about the oral arguments in the two Blakely-related cases heard this morning by the Indiana Supreme Court. (Preparing for the argument, Michael also put together this thoughtful post about Blakely waiver issues yesterday.)

As detailed here, a group of prosecutors filed an amicus brief in which my forthcoming article "Conceptualizing Blakely" and its discussion of an offense/offender distinction plays a prominent role.  Michael reports that at oral argument in the Indiana Supreme Court, the state's lawyer "spent some time on offense facts and offender characteristics." I am now especially looking forward to watching the webcast of the oral argument as soon as its gets archived here.

UPDATE: The oral argument in Heath and Smylie is now available here, and it is very much worth watching.  I have only had a chance to listen to the first portion before heading off to teach class, but I already got a chuckle when the very first comment from the bench was "Gosh there are so many questions to ask, it is hard to know where to start."  It is remarkable to watch the Justices of the Indiana Supreme Court try to make sense of Blakely in light of Indiana's existing sentencing laws and precedents.