We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

SUMMER’S OVER, BACK TO WORK

The Supreme Court’s summer recess ends today with the annual “Long Conference,” where the Court will take up the backlog of 1,500+ petitions for certiorari that have piled up since June.

So far, the three most consequential cases on the docket when the Court holds opening day next week are Shular v. United States, which asks whether the categorical approach should be used on prior drug convictions for the Armed Career Criminal Act; Banister v. Davis, which asks whether a Rule 59(e) motion in a § 2255 proceeding is subject to the second-or-successive rules of the Gonzalez v. Crosby and 28 USC §2244, and Carpenter v. Murphy (now named Sharp v. Murphy), asking which authority (the state or federal) has jurisdiction to prosecute major crimes allegedly committed in territory covering about half of the state of Oklahoma. It sounds dry, but it could invalidate thousands of Oklahoma convictions, and thus affect everything from criminal histories to ACCA and 28 USC § 851 enhancement cases.

SCOTUSBlog, Overview of the court’s criminal docket for OT 19 – sizeable and significant (Sept. 9)

– Thomas L. Root