SCOTUS rules in Pepper, again stressing sentencing discretion after Booker

The Supreme Court handed down its biggest federal sentencing case of the Term to date, ruling in the Peppercase about the consideration of post-sentencing rehabilitation at a federal resentencing proceeding.  The full opinion is available at this link, and here are the (no-so-simple) basics of the ruling in terms of how the Justices voted:

SOTOMAYOR, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and SCALIA, KENNEDY, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined, and in which BREYER and ALITO, JJ., joined as to Part III.  BREYER, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.  ALITO, J., filed an opinion concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part, and dissenting in part.  THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion.  KAGAN, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Here is the key paragraph from the start of the opinion for the Court by Justice Sotomayor: 

We hold that when a defendant’s sentence has been set aside on appeal, a district court at resentencing may consider evidence of the defendant’s postsentencing rehabilitation and that such evidence may, in appropriate cases, support a downward variance from the now-advisory Federal Sentencing Guidelines range.  Separately, we affirm the Court of Appeals’ ruling that the law of the case doctrine did not require the District Court in this case to apply the same percentage departure from the Guidelines range for substantial assistance that had been applied at petitioner’s prior sentencing.

The ultimate outcome here is not too surprising, but there seems to be a lot of "there there" in this opinion.  (For example, the first part of the opinion of the Court stresses the old 1949 Williams ruling and repeats over and over that federal judges even after modern sentencing reforms have broad discretion to consider all factors relating to the defendants.)  Blog posts will follow with some quick thoughts and perhaps some deeper thoughts in the hours and days ahead.