R.I.P. Caylee Anthony

An Orlando jury decided on July 5 that Casey Anthony was not guilty of murdering her daughter Caylee, who was only two at the time of her death.   Hundreds of protestors gathered outside the courthouse after the verdict was announced, and local police worried if they would be able to protect the building from being torched. Few of the protestors stopped to reflect on the large role popular culture played in both their sense of outrage and in the jury’s verdict.

Most obviously, the media played up the case to the nth degree.  The media time and again broadcast winning photos of Caylee and also seemed never to tire of a home video showing her singing “You Are My Sunshine.”  Viewers of the cable news shows also saw countless screenings of Caylee’s scantily clad mother grinding in bars while her daughter was still missing.  Then, too, has anybody not heard of the “bella vita” tattoo that Casey obtained shortly after Caylee’s disappearance?  HLN host Nancy Grace was especially relentless in demanding that Casey be convicted of her crime, and for the most part the public had decided Casey was guilty.

At trial, meanwhile, it seems the much-discussed “CSI effect” played a role. 

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Sentencing Commission Makes Crack Amendment Retroactive

The U.S. Sentencing Commission announced yesterday that the most important of the recent changes to the crack sentencing guidelines will be made retroactive, assuming Congress does nothing to block retroactivity before November 1.   Filling in the details, the Commission has now posted the unofficial “reader-friendly” version of its new retroactivity amendment.  The news is very good for defendants serving long prison terms under the prior, harsher versions of the crack sentencing guidelines.  It is also important to note, however, that the Commission used this amendment as an occasion to make some subtle, but significant, changes to the retroactivity guideline that will diminish the value of retroactivity to some defendants with pending or future sentence modification requests.

Here are the highlights of the Commission’s work.

First, the big, good news for crack defendants: The Commission chose to make retroactive the changes to the drug quantity table that were promulgated in April.  The Commission also made retroactive another guidelines amendment that reduces sentences for crack defendants convicted of simple possession.  (To be technically precise, these are Parts A and C of Amendment 750.)  These were the two decisions that I (and many other witnesses) advocated most forcefully for at the June hearing on retroactivity (see my post here), and they will make a big difference for a large number of people.  According to Commission analysis, “approximately 12,000 offenders would be eligible to seek a reduced sentence and the average sentence reduction would be approximately 23 percent.”  To be sure, district judges will have discretion to turn down any sentence-modification requests they receive, but the experience with retroactivity for the 2007 crack amendment indicates that the great majority of eligible defendants will indeed be granted sentence reductions.

Second, the Commission wisely rejected the Administration’s misguided request to disqualify defendants above Criminal History III or with firearms involvement.  (See my post here.)

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SCOTUS Takes Another Case on Right to Counsel in Collateral Proceedings

For the second time this month, the Court has granted certiorari in a case dealing with the right to counsel in collateral proceedings.  The first case, Martinez v. Ryan (see my post here), concerns a potential constitutional right to counsel in a collateral proceeding in state court.  The new case, Martel v. Clair (No. 10-1265), deals with a potential statutory right to counsel in a federal habeas case.

Here’s what happened.  Convicted of murder and sentenced to death in state court, Clair filed a federal habeas petition.  After discovery and an evidentiary hearing, Clair complained to the district court regarding the quality of his appointed federal public defender.  It seems that Clair and his lawyer then patched up their relationship, but a couple months later Clair again wrote to the district court and asked for the appointment of substitute counsel to pursue new leads supporting an innocence claim.  The district court denied the request in a brief order and, on the same day, denied all of the claims in the underlying petition.  On appeal, the Ninth Circuit then vacated the judgment below on the ground that the district court had abused its discretion by failing to conduct further inquiry into Clair’s complaints about his public defender.  The Supreme Court granted the state’s petition for certiorari yesterday.

At one level, the Ninth Circuit’s decision seems a very modest one that hardly warrants Supreme Court review.

 

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