Taking (insightful) stock of the post-Booker world

Though I already celebrated a month of Booker in this post here, a collection of terrific items in the papers and around the blogsphere this morning allows us all to take stock of our sentencing world a month after Booker.

First, this article in the Baltimore Sun provides a terrific overview of post-Booker developments in federal sentencing.  Similarly, the White Collar Crime Prof Blog has a great post here surveying and assessing the post-Booker landscape, as well as another fine post here spotlighting that DOJ is still able to brag in press releases about tough sentences imposed on white-collar offenders.

Second, in this terrific op-ed in the Washington Post, Andrew Goldstein provides a fantastic account of the importance of transparency in sentencing decision-making.  Though particularly stressing why, post-Booker, "it is crucial for judges to openly explain their sentences," the piece does a wonderful job of highlighting more broadly why every actor and institution involved in the development of sentencing law and policy ought to publicly explains its decisions.

Third, as a reminder of broader issues in a post-Booker world (which, as noted here, I realize do exist), the Los Angeles Times has this terrific article about the ways Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is embracing and promoting rehabilitation-oriented policies and programs in California.  TalkLeft here has a nice summary account of the article.  Notably, while the article suggests Arnold is "veering sharply from the law-and-order mantra of his Republican Party," I think this work by The Terminator (or should we call him now The Rehabilitator) is just another example of the new criminal justice right I have identified and that Grits for Breakfast has noted in Texas.