A Glimpse of the Future of Sentencing?

Yesterday's New York Times had an interesting article about a sentencing set for Tuesday in federal court in Utah. The defendant was convicted of multiple sales of marijuana. During a couple of those sales, he had a pistol in a holster around his ankle. He never took it out, used it, or threatened the buyer with it. When he was arrested, the police found some other guns stashed away in his home. Due to current mandatory minimum laws, this first time offender is facing a mandatory 63 years in prison. The judge (one of the first to apply Blakely to the Sentencing Guidelines) appears to be looking for some alternative.

Some of the anti-Blakely arguments warn of this type of Draconian sentencing could be more common if the Sentencing Guidelines are dismantled by the Supreme Court. That's certainly possible, but by no means necessary.