We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.
PREVIEW OF COMING EVENTS
With Congress careening toward a federal government shutdown (always bad news for BOP inmates), a freshly indicted Sen Bob Menendez (D-NJ) being pressured to quit, and about 300 military appointments being held up by Sen Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), it’s looking increasingly doubtful that Congress will do anything in the next 25 work days to block the Sentencing Guideline amendments from becoming effective on Nov 1.
Former Sentencing Commission attorney Mark Allenbaugh, founder of the website Sentencing Stats, has rolled out a web tool for people to use in order to determine whether they qualify for the retroactive zero-point Criminal History guidelines reduction (new USSG § 4C1.1). It can be found at https://www.zeropointoffender.com.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court returns to work after a 3-month vacation for its annual “long conference.” At today’s long conference, the Justices will decide which of some 950 petitions for writ of certiorari – about 15% of all petitions filed during the year – should be granted review.
“The summer list is where petitions go to die,” Gregory G. Garre, a solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration, told the New York Times back in 2015. While the odds of getting the Supreme Court to grant review of a case are about one in a hundred, at the long conference, the rate is roughly half of that, about 0.6%.
The Hill, All eyes on ethics as Supreme Court justices return to Washington (September 26, 2023)
The New York Times, Supreme Court’s End-of-Summer Conference: Where Appeals ‘Go to Die’ (August 31, 2015)
– Thomas L. Root