Petition of the day
on Apr 4, 2017 at 11:23 pm
The petition of the day is:
Issues: (1) Whether a criminal defendant’s constitutional right against ex post facto punishment is compromised when a United States Sentencing Statute is amended resulting in an increased punishment, with the effective date of the amendment both pre-dating and post-dating the underlying substantive criminal conduct charged in a criminal indictment; and (2) whether district courts should be bound by the “one-book” rule pursuant to United States Sentencing Guidelines §1B1.11, or whether a two-book rule should be adopted so as to not impose a sentence that runs afoul to the United States Constitution and its ex post facto clause, or whether, in the alternative, district courts should apply pre-amendment guidelines to all counts so as to avoid violating the ex post facto clause.
