Douglas Berman : "I am trying to come up with a simple take on Booker, and here it is: five Justices (the Apprendi/Blakely five) say the federal sentencing guidelines can no longer operate as mandatory sentencing rules (which is clearly how they were designed and intended to operate), but five Justices (the Apprendi/Blakely dissenters + [...]

Clark v. Martinez, Supreme Court of the United States, January 12, 2005, . Excerpt : The Government fears that the security of our borders will be compromised if it must release into the country inadmissible aliens who cannot be removed. If that is so, Congress can attend to it. But for this Court to sanction [...]

Addressing a Russian court Wednesday, former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky called the tax fraud against him and the oil company "inventions" and said that Russian investigators had removed "uncomfortable" documentation in the case. During his trial on tax evasion and fraud charges, Khodorkovsky said that "my confidence in Russian justice has been undermined by the [...]

Lawyers for the parents of Terry Schiavo , the brain damaged woman at the center of a long running right-to-die dispute, asked a Florida appeals court Wednesday to reconsider its decision not to grant a new trial in their suit . Seeking to prevent Schiavo's husband from removing her feeding tube, Schiavo's parents hope to [...]

US Magistrate Judge Patricia A. Hemann has recommended that a federal district judge enter a default judgment against PricewaterhouseCoopers for the company's failure to turn over documents and other evidence in an accounting fraud suit brought by former client Telxon and its shareholders. Hemann's nonbinding recommendations come after Telxon and its shareholders filed motions for [...]

Peter Henning, Wayne State University Law School: "At the risk of speaking without thoroughly reviewing all the opinions (wading through Justice Scalia's attack, which includes a reference to "Wonderland"; will have to wait), a couple initial impressions (with quotes).  For a more detailed (and learned) assessment of the decision, check out Doug Berman's postings at [...]

In anticipation of a run for governor by Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly , the Massachusetts Republican Party has pre-emptively registered website addresses that Reilly could have used as a campaign website. Despite the fact that Reilly has not said whether he will run for governor in 2006, the state republican party has registered several [...]

United States v. Booker, Supreme Court of the United States, January 12, 2005 . Excerpt : The question presented in each of these cases is whether an application of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines violated the Sixth Amendment. In each case, the courts below held that binding rules set forth in the Guidelines limited the severity [...]

Leading Wednesday's corporations and securities law news, the SEC will bring an enforcement action against the NYSE for failing to supervise its floor-trading specialists. The action, which is expected to be brought by mid-February, will most likely result in a negotiated settlement of the long-running probe. The SEC is also expected to reach similar agreements [...]

Mark Thatcher , son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, will plead guilty to charges over his involvement in an Equatorial Guinea coup plot, according to BBC reports. Thatcher was arrested by South African officials in August for helping to finance the failed coup attempt in violation of South Africa's Foreign Military Assistance Act [...]