« It's official: Justice John Paul Stevens is calling it quits this summer | Main | "Obama should exercise the pardon power" »
April 9, 2010
Post number 10,001 of this blog...
will apparently be this post noting this this is my 10,001 post since starting this blog just under six years ago with this first post on May 14, 2004. That first post concerned the then-new report issued by the commission created by then-Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney concerning how to try to create a nearly "foolproof" death penalty system for the state.
As the early archives of this blog show, my initial plan for this space was to do just a few posts each week with links to new reports and articles that did not get much attention (and were hard to find) elsewhere. In fact, over my first six weeks of blogging, I averaged only three posts per week, and only two of my first 18 posts referenced a court ruling (one of which was this post speculating about a possibly big pending SCOTUS case).
But six weeks into this blogging experiment, the Supreme Court handed down its remarkable Blakely ruling, and this blog took a more manic (and case-centric) turn. Perhaps fittingly, I am noting a blogging milestone one post later than I expected because I had to give my 10,000th post to announcing the official retirement of whom I regard to be perhaps the "greatest" sentencing Justice of all time.
April 9, 2010 at 04:57 PM | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83451574769e201347fc3ca41970c
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Post number 10,001 of this blog...:
Comments
Congratulations Doug. A job well done.
Posted by: Daniel | Apr 9, 2010 5:46:38 PM
Congratulations! I'm a recent OSU Law alum (though I never had a class with you) working in criminal defense, and I deal a fair amount with federal sentencing issues. Reading this blog has been a big help.
Posted by: Ben | Apr 9, 2010 6:25:13 PM
Congratulations, Prof. B. This blog is thought provoking, challenging, and exasperating. A feature of a good one is that induces original analysis one did not expect from oneself.
I doubt this blog can change or improve. It would be a challenge for Prof. B to grow it intellectually. A bit more on the following would broaden it.
Victimization.
Balance from the left wing citation sources. Quote a few more articles from the right or even just from the mainstream.
Lawyer rigging of the system.
Failure of the criminal law, and the damage that does to all of us.
Judging is hard. It is not lawyering, and is worthy of a separate education and licensing.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Apr 9, 2010 10:16:09 PM
Congratulations, Doug. Your blog is a wonderful service for folks like me who work in the trenches and find it hard to keep up with current developments around the country.
Justice Stevens will be missed. Apprendi, in my view, was a vindication of Stevens' dissent in McMillan and an attempt to restore Marbury v Madison's notion that it is the courts, not the legislature, that have the ultimate say on whether something is inconsistent with the Constitution. Legislatures, consumed with considerations of politics above considerations of principle, are troublesome places to put in charge of safeguarding fundamental rights and liberties.
Keep up the good work.
bruce
Posted by: bruce cunningham | Apr 10, 2010 8:27:39 AM
Prof. Great blog. Has helped me alot in my work. One question: Where do you get the time and the energy?
Michael
Posted by: Michael R. Levine | Apr 10, 2010 10:50:03 AM
Bruce: As a favor to everyone here, please point to the item in the constitution that permits judicial review, a momentous amendment of the constitution without going through the amendment process. This is a custom after the exploitation of historic chaos by Coke to just take power on behalf of unelected and unaccountable, bewigged judges. Marbury was filled with shady dealing and illegality.
http://supremacyclaus.blogspot.com/2007/06/marburygate-or-misconduct-in-marbury-v.html
An Amendment should reverse it for illegality. Its spawn were catastrophic, including a Civil War and conflict over race for 100 years, instead of legislative resolution, and validity of the peaceful solution. Today, there is the same level of heat over abortion.
Judicial review is insurrection against the constitution and treason. Add illegality, and horrid outcomes and it should be outlawed.
It has been excellent vehicle for lawyer hyper-proceduralism and rent seeking. That is why all lawyers like it as if it were holy. The lawyer will crush even very powerful politicians (Tom Delay) who criticize or threaten out of control lawless courts, no matter the horrible outcomes of their betrayal of our nation.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Apr 10, 2010 11:21:46 AM
Congratulations and thank you, Prof Berman. Like Messrs. Cunningham and Levine, I also extend those thanks on behalf of dozens of clients.
Posted by: Jay Hurst | Apr 11, 2010 11:06:50 AM
congrats, Professor-- sentencing is the most important justice issue in the country and the one least understood, let alone talked about, by the people who actually wield power over its creation and implementation. Keep on blogging!
Posted by: Praga | Apr 11, 2010 12:29:22 PM
That's an extraordinary level of posting, Doug! I began Grits just a few months after you started SL&P, and I'll hit 5,000 posts in a couple of weeks or so. I thought that was a lot, but clearly you're dwarfing my own level of productivity.
Congrats on the milestone! I don't know why it's so psychologically pleasing to hit those nice, round numbers, but it is.
Posted by: Gritsforbreakfast | Apr 14, 2010 8:49:42 AM
Great Blog! Thanks so much for this useful information.
I hope you will contribute a lot to all your readers and gain more valuable information. Thanks!
Posted by: pandora jewelry | Dec 3, 2010 8:56:40 PM
