July 19, 2004

Those who haven't seen it should check out the front page of Section B of today's Wall Street Journal, which contains an article (subscription required) on Ohio State University professor Douglas Berman's weblog, Sentencing Law and Policy. Although we at Point Of Law deal with civil justice rather than criminal issues, the article does suggest that bLAWgs do in fact have the potential for influence. The blog has been getting particular attention in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Blakely v. Washington, which threw into question the constitutionality of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines: "Last week, the blog was cited in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held hearings to consider a short-term fix to quell some of the chaos resulting from the Supreme Court ruling's effect on the 20-year-old federal sentencing guidelines. Also last week, New York's Second Circuit Court of Appeals cited the blog in a unanimous opinion of the court's 13 active judges, which beseeched the Supreme Court to decide the guidelines' constitutionality quickly. Judge Paul G. Cassell of Utah, the first federal judge to declare the guidelines unconstitutional, cited the blog in his groundbreaking opinion."