"High Court Sentence Views Flummox Judges"

[GreenPartyVoter]

WASHINGTON (AP) - In the three weeks since a Supreme Court ruling cast a constitutional shadow over federal sentencing rules, four federal trial judges have interpreted the high court ruling in four different ways. And that's just in Utah.

"The criminal docket is now operating under tremendous uncertainty," U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell told Congress on Tuesday.

Cassell is one of those four Utah judges, and the first to declare that the bombshell high court ruling makes the complex architecture of federal sentencing guidelines unconstitutional.

Despite the confusion, Cassell and other federal judges urged skeptical senators not to leap to write new sentencing rules. Let courts, including the Supreme Court, sort things out first, the judges said.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20040713/D83Q549O0.html