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Rita v. U.S.

By Jefferson M. Gray
August 29, 2007

Two-and-a-half years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in the remedial portion of its bifurcated decision in U.S. v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), that the system of federal Sentencing Guidelines established by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 could pass constitutional muster only if the Guidelines were treated as having advisory, rather than mandatory, effect. But Booker left open the question of how much weight the now advisory Guidelines should henceforth be given in a district court's sentencing calculus. Was the Guidelines offense level entitled to predominant weight, first in shaping, and then in reviewing, a district court's sentencing decision? Or should the Guidelines instead be treated as only one factor, entitled to no greater weight than the other half-dozen considerations set forth in 18 U.S.C. ' 3553(a)?

Last November, the Supreme Court granted writs of certiorari in two cases ' Rita v. United States, No. 06-5754 and Claiborne v. United States, No. 06-5618 ' that seemed likely to resolve this question. The main issue in Rita was whether it was consistent with Booker to accord a presumption of reasonableness to sentences within the range calculated under the Guidelines. Claiborne presented the related issue of whether appellate courts could require that a sentence constituting a substantial variance from the Guidelines be justified by extraordinary circumstances.

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