More reports from House Booker hearings

Though yesterday's House Booker hearing (basics here and here) has received relatively little attention, I can provide some additional views of the event.  For starters, the Sentencing Project has a brief recap of the hearing at this link.  In addition, an article about the hearing ran yesterday in CQ Today entitled "Justice Official Urges 'Minimum Guidelines System' to Limit Sentencing by Judges."  Here are snippets from that article:

Members of Congress adopted a wait-and-see posture after the Booker decision.  But House Republicans, citing a new report by the U.S. Sentencing Commission released this week, are now calling for a legislative response to curb judges' discretion.

Howard Coble, R-N.C., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, which held Thursday's hearing, said he would think through the testimony before endorsing any legislative approach. Judiciary Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., did not attend the hearing but said a day earlier that he and the attorney general "are going to be on the same page on this."...

Panel Republicans, Democrats and their witnesses drew sharply different conclusions about the Sentencing Commission's latest report on post-Booker sentencing practices and whether it justified congressional intervention.

In addition, soon after the hearing yesterday, Nkechi Taifa, a Senior Policy Analyst of the Open Society Institute circulated an e-mail with her "quick notes" on the event.  Nkechi was kind enough to permit me to post her notes on the blog, and then can now be downloaded below.

Download taifa_quick_notes_on_booker_hearing.rtf