Thursday, October 28, 2004

Blakely & Homeless Hounds in California

Doug Berman at Sentencing Law & Policy asked (here) if anyone knew if the California Supreme Court had set a date for oral argument in People v. Black and People v. Towne, two Blakely cases the court has taken on an expedited basis. Curious myself, I went and had a looksee at the dockets here and here. No date for either case.

It turns out in Black, though, that the California Supreme Court has received the Court of Appeals' appellate record, which includes three dog houses, according to the notes section.

Well, Ok. That's plenty weird--especially if you go read Black, which doesn't contain so much as a paw print. But it gets better. The appellant in Black, the Blakely case, is Kevin Michael Black. The California web setup is none to friendly to the uninitiated, so I also had to check two separate dockets for Phillip Black's petition for review here and here, also from the Fifth District Court of Appeals. The notes section here shows only one dog house.

Maybe no physical dog houses have gone to San Francisco. Maybe the notes are just a way the California Court of Appeals tells the Supreme Court how much of a dog the case is.

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