Booker Rules

Abstract

In United States v. Booker, the Supreme Court excised two provisions of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (SRA) that had made the Sentencing Guidelines binding on sentencing judges: 18 U.S.C. § 3553(b), the provision that had confined departures to specified, limited circumstances, and 18 U.S.C. § 3742(e), the standard of review under which courts of appeals had enforced those limitations. The Court made the law of sentencing the purposes and factors set forth in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), and the standard of review for all sentences, inside or outside the guideline range, the "reasonableness" of the sentencing judge's application of that law.