The defense attorney who argued the US v. Booker case [see entry immediately below] before the 7th Circuit, T. Christopher Kelly, posted this entry yesterday on the law blog, Talk Left (which provides "Liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news"):
The Seventh Circuit this afternoon declared the federal sentencing guidelines unconstitutional as applied to a sentence that was enhanced on the basis of facts that were not determined by a jury. This appears to be the first appellate decision to find that the Supreme Court's decision in Blakely requires facts that determine a guideline sentence to be found by a jury.For outstanding (and tireless) coverage of Blakely, and sentencing law in general, I again recommend Ohio State Law Professor Douglas A. Berman's Sentencing Law and Policy Blog.The court did not decide whether the guidelines are unconstitutional in their entirety. It did not decide whether the guideline requirement that judges find sentencing facts can be severed from the other guideline requirements, leaving that for the district court to consider on remand.
For background, check this article in Slate titled "The Incredible Shrinking Judiciary: The federal bench starts to throw off its shackles."