Play Ball! SCOTUS Ball, That Is

Today was the first Monday in October, which means the first day of the Supreme Court's 2007-2008 season, er, term. As this article in the Christian Science Monitor explains, the coming months will see the Court take on many issues that will likely be resolved with 5-4 votes based on Justice Kennedy's vote.

For federal criminal lawyers like myself, things get off to a big start tomorrow with oral arguments in two cases, Gall and Kimbrough, that deal with the current state of federal sentencing. In Gall, the issues involves what district courts have to do to have sentences imposed outside of the advisory Sentencing Guidelines upheld on appeal. In Kimbrough (which may be argued by my counterpart in the Eastern District of Virginia), the issue involves how/when/if district courts can consider the inequities in the 100-to-1 ratio for crack and cocaine powder when imposing sentence. Both cases could be huge in the federal sentencing field. Or they could be duds. You never really know.