Blakely in the E.D. Va. (and elsewhere)

The Norfolk paper has this description ("Supreme Court decision shakes up sentencing process on local scene," 7/14/04) of the scurrying about that is going on in criminal cases in the E.D. Va., following the Supreme Court's Blakely decision, which is resulting in some new decision from somewhere almost every day regarding the constitutionality of the federal Sentencing Guidelines.

I don't read all that's out there about Blakely, but I expect to eventually run across an article explaining Blakely as the point where the federal judiciary snapped back against mandatory sentencing. The language of the Sixth Amendment has not changed since the passage of the Sentence Reform Act, but attitudes toward mandatory sentencing have gotten worse.