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August 18, 2005

Fifth Circuit clearing Booker pipeline

Busy_beeI joked in this post about the First and Eighth Circuits being busy sentencing bees, but the Fifth Circuit today has surely set some sort of record.  As revealed on this opinion page, the Fifth Circuit today released an enormous number of unpublished criminal dispositions — by my very rough count, perhaps over 150 rulings — and it appears that many (most? all?) are decisions rejecting Booker claims of various sorts.  I do not recall ever seeing so many dispositions from a circuit in one day, and I have to think some sort of official or unofficial coordination resulted in this massive release of opinions at one time. 

Needless to say, I will have to rely on readers to report on anything substantively noteworthy in all these unpublished dispositions from the Fifth Circuit.  In the meantime, I can point to the interesting and noteworthy published disposition in US v. Betancourt, No. 03-41590 (5th Cir. Aug 17, 2005) (available here).  As well linked by How Appealing here, Betancourt is getting press coverage because the Fifth Circuit upheld a forfeiture order requiring the defendant to relinquish his part of $5.5 million in lottery winnings because he bought the lucky ticket with drug proceeds.  And while that part of the ruling makes headlines, the guidelines part of the Betancourt decision is also of interest as another example of sentencing outcomes determined by guestimates of drug quantities involved in the offense.

UPDATEA helpful reader shared this information about the Fifth Circuit's copious work:

All those Fifth Circuit cases seem just to be the product of one of the court's periodic conference calendars. If you're curious how the conference calendar works, it was described by one of the judges in Jerry E. Smith, Foreword, 25 Tex. Tech L. Rev. 255 (1994). Former Chief Judge Politz described the conference calendar in a bit less detail in Graves v. Hampton, 1 F.3d 315, 317 (5th Cir. 1993).

August 18, 2005 at 05:19 PM | Permalink

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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Fifth Circuit clearing Booker pipeline:

» But what about Jamie Olis? from Houston's Clear Thinkers
Doug Berman points out that Thursday was a busy day in New Orleans as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued over 160 published and unpublished decisions that appear mostly to involve rejection of various Booker sentencing claims. It's safe... [Read More]

Tracked on Aug 19, 2005 8:52:11 AM

» But what about Jamie Olis? from Houston's Clear Thinkers
Doug Berman points out that Thursday was a busy day in New Orleans as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued over 160 published and unpublished decisions that appear mostly to involve rejection of various Booker sentencing claims. It's safe... [Read More]

Tracked on Aug 19, 2005 8:59:35 AM

» But what about Jamie Olis? from Houston's Clear Thinkers
Doug Berman points out that Thursday was a busy day in New Orleans as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued over 160 published and unpublished decisions that appear mostly to involve rejection of various Booker sentencing claims. It's safe... [Read More]

Tracked on Aug 19, 2005 9:01:23 AM

» But what about Jamie Olis? from Houston's Clear Thinkers
Doug Berman points out that Thursday was a busy day in New Orleans as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued over 160 published and unpublished decisions that appear mostly to involve rejection of various Booker sentencing claims. It's safe... [Read More]

Tracked on Aug 22, 2005 10:59:00 AM

» But what about Jamie Olis? from Houston's Clear Thinkers
Doug Berman points out that Thursday was a busy day in New Orleans as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals issued over 160 published and unpublished decisions that appear mostly to involve rejection of various Booker sentencing claims. It's safe... [Read More]

Tracked on Sep 2, 2005 11:45:59 AM

Comments

Attention all students and Sentencing Guru’s: A curious reader would love to hear thoughts on how/if the recent Betancourt case will impact future cases involving forfeitures /sentencing outcome& guesstimates. This case appears to represent excessive lust and greed on the part of the government. Also does anyone know of a local ordinance case that was declared unconstitutional involving civilians standing/ loitering and/or gathering that gave authorities search/seizure type access? I recall something in Chicago a few years ago…designed to address gangs etc ..overturned?? Please Help!

Posted by: Stephanie | Aug 19, 2005 10:55:00 AM

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