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Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Law - At 33, Seattle attorney has won two Supreme Court cases
"At 33, Seattle attorney has won two Supreme Court cases" is the headline to this story published Monday in the Seattle Times, about lawyer Jeffrey Fisher, who has won two cases this year before the Supreme Court, "the first criminal cases he had argued, at the Supreme Court or anywhere." More:
And these weren't just any old cases. Fisher's two wins could fundamentally change the way justice is doled out nationwide.The Department of Justice has scrambled to write emergency procedures to deal with the latest Fisher case on criminal sentencing, and Congress, as well as state lawmakers across the country, already is trying to come up with a new law to fix the problems Fisher raised. Meanwhile, prosecutors and defense lawyers are coming to terms with the issues Fisher raised in his other case, which concerned defendants' rights to cross-examine witnesses. * * *
He came across the cases as a volunteer for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, reviewing criminal cases for potential appeals issues. Dinner-table conversations with Douglass about her day-to-day work in the criminal court helped him identify concerns. He then began searching the cases for the best examples he could use to right what he perceived as wrongs.
"Almost everybody thought I was going to lose," Fisher recalled of the cases he chose to fight.
He didn't. In March, he convinced the courts that defendants' rights to cross-examine witnesses against them have been deeply eroded, an opinion that overturned 25 years of precedent and has sweeping implications.
Then last month, the court ruled that sentencing rules that allow judges to add years to a defendant's sentence without the supporting facts being proved beyond a reasonable doubt are unconstitutional. The decision upset a system that has been in place in about a dozen states for more than 20 years and threatens the very foundation of federal sentencing, as well.
"What I have feared most has now come to pass," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in a passionate dissent on the most recent decision. "Over 20 years of sentencing reform are all but lost, and tens of thousands of criminal judgments are in jeopardy."
This is the case that has created the most buzz. Already, several judges have decided that federal sentencing guidelines are unconstitutional.
The sentencing case is, of course, Blakely v. Washington. The other decision is Crawford v. Washington:
In this case, decided in March, the Supreme Court ruled that defendants have a constitutional right to cross-examine witnesses against them. The case involved a taped statement from the defendant's wife, which was played at trial even though the wife did not testify. The ruling has created concerns over whether tape recordings of 911 calls can be admitted as evidence.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 13, 2004 04:36 PM
Posted to General Law Related