Background and blog commentary on Deck and Medellin

Though I am most excited today by Colorado Supreme Court's big Blakely opinion in Lopez (which I hope to comment upon at length in future posts), other bloggers who are not quite so Blakely-addled are buzzing about SCOTUS's capital sentencing work today in Deck and Medellin (basics here).  I hope to find time to comment about these decisions before too long, but in the meantime I can provide some background and links to other commentary.

Starting with Deck, the shackling case, here are press reports on the decision from the AP and from Reuters.  And the blogsphere provides commentary from Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy.

Turning to Medellin, the foreign nationals case, here are press reports on the decision from the AP and from Reuters. And the blogsphere provides commentary from Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog, from Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy, from Julian Ku at Opinio Juris, and from TalkLeft.