Friday, July 16, 2004

More on Blakely and the Fourth Circuit

Via this post from How Appeal, the Charleston Post and Courier has this article ("Sentencing guidelines decision affects several S.C. cases," 7/16/04), which says, among other things:

"A U.S. Supreme Court decision last month has raised questions because it indirectly suggests that federal sentencing guidelines deny defendants their rights to a jury trial.

Meanwhile, while an appellate court in Richmond, Va., considers next month how courts in the South should apply sentencing rules, a federal judge in Charleston has delayed sentencing hearings in two criminal cases. . . .

U.S. District Judge David Norton in Charleston postponed two cases until the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond makes a decision in a Charlotte case involving a man sentenced to 155 years in prison for smuggling cigarettes. Attorneys for Mohamad Hammoud Contar contend that a federal judge imposed an excessive sentence."

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