Supreme Court to Revist Federal Prison Sentencing Rules

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33963-2004Aug2.html


By Anne Gearan
The Associated Press
Monday, August 2, 2004; 10:50 AM

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to settle whether long-standing federal rules for sentencing criminals violate the Constitution, a question that has thrown federal courthouses into disarray this summer.

The high court said it will hear two cases suggested by the Bush administration. The Justice Department had rushed the appeals just weeks after the court ruled major portions of a state sentencing system unconstitutional.

That system in the state of Washington, like the federal sentencing system, relied on judges to make many decisions that can affect the length of a defendant's sentence. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in June that juries must decide any matter that can lengthen a sentence beyond the maximum set out in state sentencing guidelines, or the defendant must admit it. Federal trial judges routinely make such findings as the quantity of drugs involved in a crime or whether a gun was used.



My question is, when did the Supreme Court start hearing " cases suggested by the Bush administration" ????

Thanks !

largely what their Masters want them to, from Nazis on the Right to Soviets on the Left.

Imperial Amerika, trying to hide it's New Totalitarianism for the same reasons Caeser refused to declare himself "King", is oddly in the middle.

The Judidcal Arm of the Coup (formerly known as the "Supreme Court") is walking athin line, pretending to be like Courts in the ever-shrinking Free World while hearing and doing whatever their Imperial Masters desire from them.