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Diagramming SentencesThe Supreme Court's war on sentencing guidelines.

By Emily Bazelon
Posted Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2007, at 6:43 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

Cunningham is only the court's first word on the subject this term. In two cases to be argued next month, the court will fill in more detail about how much discretion federal judges actually now have. Doug Berman, law professor and sentencing blogger extraordinaire, thinks that both cases look like vehicles for additional change and leniency. In one, the defendant is a military veteran whose perjury crime looks more like a misunderstanding than a deliberate lie. In the second, an appeals court supplied the facts it relied on to reverse the sentencing break given by a trial judge. Get ready for more destruction.

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Emily Bazelon is a Slate senior editor.
Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty.
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