Recapping another amazing sentencing week

With an afternoon off-line in my offing, I will put the wraps on another amazing week of sentencing developments with this early week-in-review post.  Have a great weekend (and don't forget mom).

SCOTUS DEVELOPMENTS AND COMMENTARY

• First set of briefs in Cunningham
• What do Justices Alito and Roberts think about bright lines?
• Time to take some more Blakely and Booker cases....
• Reading new Justice tea leaves
• The sad realities of SCOTUS defense advocacy

DEATH PENALTY DEVELOPMENTS AND COMMENTARY

• The partial de facto moratorium created by Hill
• Another state halts an execution due to lethal injection litigation
• Fascinating concurrence in Ninth Circuit capital case
• Interesting analysis of Moussaoui verdict

BOOKER DEVELOPMENTS AND COMMENTARY

• Policy judgments at federal sentencing: aren't they inevitable and mandated by Congress?
• More fast-track work from Judge Adelman
• First Circuit finds huge upward variance unreasonable
• A reason-less application of reasonableness
• Third Eighth Circuit reversal of downward variance this week
• Ninth Circuit discusses fast-track disparity
• Important (unpublished) 11th Circuit decision affirming large downward variance

STATE SENTENCING DEVELOPMENTS AND COMMENTARY

• Arizona Supreme Court upholds 200-year sentence for possessing child porn
• What ever happened to state constitutional law, textualism, and libertarianism?
• Washington Supreme Court address Blakely and minimums
• You make the call: sentencing in The Station nightclub fire
• Four-year sentence in The Station nightclub fire
• A high sentence for a slice of Big Love

OTHER SENTENCING DEVELOPMENTS AND COMMENTARY

• US leads the world ... in locking people up
• Record sentence for spam crime
• Interesting examination of faith-based prison movement