Law360 and SCOTUSblog tend to serve as go-to spots for me when looking for overviews and previews of the Supreme Court’s criminal docket. And with the First Monday in October now just days away, these sources are not disappointing:
Overview
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Previewing two high-profile — and challenging — federal sentencings scheduled for today
Two very different individuals convicted of very different crimes in very high-profile cases are scheduled to be sentenced in two different federal courtrooms today. Both cases involve so many notable and compelling sentencing elements, these press previews only serve to
“Contagious Discrimination: Why Race-blind Justice in Court Rooms is not Enough”
The title of this post is the title of this new paper authored by Yijia Lu and Murat C. Mungan that is now available via SSRN. Here is its abstract:
Existing theories of discrimination focus on discrimination at the individual,
BJS releases new reports on “Criminal Victimization” and “Prisoners” and “Correctional Populations” in the US
Though I suspect the timing is coincidental, the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics released a number of new reports just before the start of the federal government shut down. Here are the summary descriptions of the reports and links that
How might ChatGPT sentence Sean “Diddy” Combs?
In an especially prescient passage published more than a half century ago, Judge Marvin Frankel had this observation in a book advocating for the development of sentencing guidelines:
It is not necessary, or desirable, to imagine that sentencing can be
New analysis confirms reduction in federal drug prosecutions in 2025
I have highlighted in recent posts about US Sentencing Commission sentencing data that in 2025 we have been seeing a relative uptick in immigration cases and downtick in drug cases as a percentage of the overall federal sentencing caselooad (see
“Criminal Justice and the Erosion of Constitutional Rights”
The title of this post is the title of this new article authored byTerry Skolnik and now available via SSRN. Here is its abstract:
Many constitutional rights have eroded for reasons that are largely ignored. Beginning in the 1960s, the criminal procedure
Prison Policy Initiative publishes “States of Women’s Incarceration: The Global Context 2025”
Earliet this week, the Prison Policy Initiative published this week this notable new accounting of women’s incarceration under the title “States of Women’s Incarceration: The Global Context 2025.” This graphic reprinted here previews some of the data and visuals from the
Texas completes its fifth execution of 2025
As reported in this Texas Tribune article, in Texas “Blaine Milam was executed Thursday evening for the 2008 killing of his then-fiancée’s 13-month-old daughter after his two previous execution dates were delayed.” Here is more:
In 2008, Milam and
Alabama completes its sixth execution using nitrogen gas
As reported in this AP piece, “An Alabama man convicted of killing a woman during a 1997 gas station robbery was put to death Thursday after apologizing to the family and pleas from the victim’s son to spare his