Osler's Razor

The lethal injection of turkeys aside, sentencing issues are rising to the fore in the popular press. The front page of the Washington Post today carried this story, reporting on the hearings today on the issue of whether or not the change in the crack guidelines (lowering sentences) will be made retroactive. Most of us in the field are guessing (and hoping) that the Sentencing Commission will make the change retroactive; to do otherwise would expose the Commission to charges of racism. When the Commission lowered the guidelines for marijuana, LSD, and OxyContin-- all drugs found in the hands of predominantly white defendants-- they made those changes retroactive.

Of course, we also have the rough equivalent of a national stay on executions pending the Baze case in the Supreme Court. That is likely to be the next big story in criminal law.