These are busy times in the criminal justice arena and elsewhere, and I never have enough time to keep up with, let alone blog about, all the notable news and commentary that sentencing fans might find interesting.  So, looking to cover a lot of ground quickly, here is a round-up of (mostly commentary) pieces that seem worth checking out. From The Atlantic, “The Repurposing of the American Jail: Jails and prisons are becoming substance-abuse …

This new Los Angeles Times article, headlined “In sentencing Del Mar father, key judge in admissions scandal offers insight into future decisions,” provides an interesting behind-the-scenes looks at one of the judges now at the center of upcoming sentencing in the Varsity Blues case. And toward the end of the piece there is an interesting discussion of purposed efforts to “judge shop.” Here are excerpts: It was a sentencing hearing for Toby Macfarlane, a…

The title of this post is the title of this new paper authored by Susan Klein now available via SSRN.  Here is its abstract: From my vantage point, judges’ individual control over their courtrooms remains largely stable.  Updated but similar versions of the problems encountered (and created) by Judge Julius Hoffman now confront our newer, younger, and perhaps better qualified judges.  While federal judges may be less likely to encounter radical, overtly political defendants and…

As noted in this prior post, many questions have been raised about the guilt of Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed, who had been scheduled to be executed on November 20.  But, as this Hill piece reports, that execution was stayed late Friday: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Friday to stay indefinitely the upcoming execution of Texas inmate Rodney Reed, who had been convicted in a 1996 slaying. Citing an appeal filed…

I am pleased to be able to report on a great new district court ruling granting a sentence reduction using 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) in order to under the now-repealed harshness of severe stacking of mandatory minimum 924(c) counts.  (As regular readers know, in prior posts I have made much of a key provision of the FIRST STEP Act which now allows federal courts to directly reduce sentences under the (so-called compassionate release) statutory…

As reported in this Military Times piece, “President Donald Trump on Friday granted clemency to three controversial military figures embroiled in charges of war crimes, arguing the moves will give troops ‘the confidence to fight’ without worrying about potential legal overreach.”  Here is more about these grants: Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, convicted of second degree murder in the death of three Afghans, was given a full pardon from president for the crimes.  Army…

Via this new order list, the Supreme Court has added four new cases to its merits docket.  The big one of the bunch is a case involving Google and copyright issues concerning computer code, but the others are criminal cases.  One has SCOTUS focused on the application of the Armed Career Criminal Act yet again, and two combined others deals with statutes of limitation.  Here are descriptions of the new criminal cases via this post …