The judges of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are apparently sharply divided over some of the fundamental questions left unanswered by the U.S. Supreme Court when it effectively overhauled the process of criminal sentencing.
The justices’ decision last year in United States v. Booker declared that the mandatory federal sentencing guidelines then in place were unconstitutional. The flaw in such a mandatory guidelines scheme, the justices found, was that too many factual issues were being decided by judges instead of juries.
