HIGH COURT DECLINES TO CLARIFY SENTENCING-GUIDELINE DECISION

Justices Reject Petition Based On January Ruling; Not Chasing 'Squabbles'

The Supreme Court turned down a petition to clarify its January decision
that invalidated U.S. mandatory sentencing guidelines, leaving federal
circuit courts to make their own rules on the matter. The high court's move
means federal inmates in some states will continue to have an easier time
challenging their sentences than prisoners in others.

The January decision in U.S. v. Booker limited federal judges in punishing
convicted defendants for aggravating factors that weren't proven to a jury
or admitted by the defendant. That threw into turmoil sentences for
thousands of inmates, many of whom petitioned for earlier release dates.
The Supreme Court didn't specify how its opinion should be applied, leaving
it up to the federal circuit courts of appeal, which supervise different
groups of states.

Four circuits ruled that any sentence longer than the maximum allowed by
the facts found by the jury or undisputed by the defendant usually would
require new sentences. One circuit decided that the trial courts would have
to decide whether resentencing was needed. Two other circuits concluded
that inmates wouldn't receive lighter sentences unless they could show that
they probably would have received a lighter sentence had the trial judge
considered the federal sentencing guidelines to be advisory rather than
mandatory.

Yesterday, the high court declined to hear the case of Vladimir Rodriguez,
who was convicted of a federal drug dealing offense in Florida, within the
jurisdiction of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which
applies the harsher resentencing standard. After that court upheld his
109-month sentence, he appealed to the Supreme Court. The Justice
Department supported the 11th Circuit's opinion, but asked the Supreme
Court to hear the case to resolve the "deep and real" split among the
appellate courts.

Four of the nine justices must agree before the high court will hear an
appeal. In rejecting the Rodriguez case, the court made no decision on
which interpretation is correct and could take up the question in a future
appeal.

"The Supreme Court is saying it is not going to chase down the smaller
squabbles in the wake of Blakely [a precursor case] and Booker, at least
not yet," said Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University.
"What they have to think about is which are the most important issues and
what case is the proper vehicle."

With Chief Justice William Rehnquist presiding, the Supreme Court issued
six opinions yesterday, but the term's most contentious decisions remain to
be released, including cases involving display of the Ten Commandments on
public property, the eminent-domain powers of local governments and the
legality, challenged by the entertainment industry, of an Internet
file-sharing system called Grokster. The court is next scheduled to issue
rulings Thursday.

- --Gary Fields contributed to this article