July 3 – Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
The “post-Booker sentencing scheme aims to achieve uniformity by ensuring that sentencing decisions are anchored by the guidelines and that they remain a meaningful benchmark through the process of appellate review.” As a result, because the “Guidelines are the lodestone of sentencing,” use of a later more harsh guideline violates the progeny of ex post facto clause cases that forbid the government from action designed “to enhance the measure of punishment by altering the substantive ‘formula’ used to calculate the applicable sentencing range.”