Third Circuit to examine en banc Blakely's impact on restitution

The folks over at Appellate Law & Practice have a lot of strong recent posts, including this item which helpfully pointed me to this extended post from the Third Circuit Blog detailing that the Third Circuit "has sua sponte voted to rehear en banc three appeals previously argued before two different panels in which the issue is whether the rule of Blakely and Booker applies to orders of restitution and forfeiture."  By my lights, this is an quite interesting and important development.

As detailed in this post on an Eighth Circuit decision last month, the consensus view in the federal circuits is that neither Apprendi nor Blakely prohibit judicial fact finding for restitution orders.  But, as I have said before, that consensus view seems somewhat suspect in light of Justice Scalia's forceful and broad assertion for the Court in Blakely that "every defendant has the right to insist that the prosecutor prove to a jury all facts legally essential to the punishment."

David McColgin's post at the Third Circuit Blog provides a useful primer on why the Third Circuit will have a lot to consider in these en banc cases, and this prior posts details that at least one academic commentator thinks that the Third Circuit ought to follow a different path than the other circuits on these important issues.