SCOTUSblog is doing their usual excellent job keeping us up to date on the happenings on Mt. Olympus. The latest "stat pack" is here. Cases remaining to be decided this term are here. Cases granted for next term are here. We will summarize the points of interest to criminal law practitioners here.
Tomorrow is a decision release day. Criminal cases remaining to be decided are:
Rita v. United States, No. 06-5754, on whether a within-guidelines sentence is presumptively a reasonable one under Booker. Copious commentary is available at SL&P.
Bowles v. Russell, No. 06-5306, on the effect of the district court's error in purporting to give a habeas petitioner more time to appeal than the district court actually had authority to give.
Panetti v. Quarterman, No. 06-6407, on whether the state can execute a schizophrenic murderer who knows what he did and knows he is sentenced to death for it, but delusionally believes the state is actually going to kill him to stop him from preaching.
Brendlin v. California, No. 06-8120, on whether a passenger in a vehicle has standing to contest the legality of a traffic stop of the vehicle.
Cases granted for next term include:
Logan v. United States, No. 06-6911, on when a convicted felon gets his right to bear arms back.
Watson v. United States, No. 06-571, on whether a person "uses" a firearm in connection with a drug offense, incurring a 5-year minimum, by accepting the gun as payment for the drugs.
United States v. Williams, No. 06-694, on fake kiddie porn.
United States v. Santos, No. 06-1005, on accounting issues in money laundering.
Medellin v. Texas, No. 06-984. This is the sequel to Medellin v. Dretke, 544 U.S. 660 (2005), on the Vienna Convention, the ICJ decision in Avena, President Bush's curious memorandum, and long overdue justice for an exceptionally depraved crime, even by capital case standards.
Danforth v. Minnesota, No. 06-8273, on whether state habeas courts may apply a new federal constitutional rule retroactively when that rule would not so apply in federal habeas under Teague v. Lane.
Ali v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 06-9130, on sovereign immunity and detention of goods by prison officials.
Gall v. United States, No. 06-1221, on whether an outside-guidelines sentence is presumptive unreasonable, the converse of Rita, above, and the replacement for the moot case of the late Mario Claiborne.
Kimbrough v. United States, No. 06-6330, on the notorious 100/1 ratio for crack v. powder cocaine sentencing.
The October 2007 Term so far is heavy on federal cases. For those of us whose primary interest is in punishing the common-law, malum in se crimes (murder, rape, etc.), there isn't a lot here yet. With the notable exception of Medellin, of course.
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