Notable late week wins for defendants in the circuits

At the end of a long week, I missed three notable opinions from Friday in which circuit courts found in favor of defendants in their sentencing appeals.  The opinions — US vs. Meraz-Enriquez, No. 04-40607 (5th Cir. Mar. 3, 2006) (available here), US vs. Luciano-Rodriguez, No. 04-41016 (5th Cir. Mar. 3, 2006) (available here), and US vs. Bah, No. 05-1863 (8th Cir. Mar. 3, 2006) (available here) — are notable not only because the defendants' prevailed, but also because of what gets said along the way.

The two Fifth Circuit decisions involve yet another set of debates over what constitutes a "crime of violence" within the meaning of section 2L1.2 of the guidelines.  Luciano-Rodriguez is the must-read because of a long and thoughtful dissent by Judge Owen.  The Eighth Circuit's decision in Bah likewise turns on a conclusion that the district court erred in calculating the applicable guideline range, although Judge Bye concurs to explain why he viewed the above-guideline sentence imposed to be unreasonable.