Oregon v. Ice (More): SCOTUSBlog's Take

After the oral argument in Oregon v. Ice, the case about whether Blakely is going to apply to consecutive sentences, SCOTUSBlog provided this summary of the argument.

Here is the intriguing paragraph for the fair folk of Indiana:

While the Court leaned noticeably toward the jury option, one potential question went unanswered in the argument Tuesday: would the jury have to have that role as a general constitutional proposition, or have it only in states that had laws requiring that multiple sentences for two or more crimes normally be served concurrently unless some added fact supported consecutive sentencing? Perhaps as many as 13 states have such laws, so if their existence was necessary for the jury to have the fact-finding task to make sentences consecutive, that would give such an expansion of Apprendi less impact. Oregon has that kind of law, but Justice Antonin Scalia suggested that it was “unusual.”

Nobody's ever claimed Indiana isn't "unusual." It's especially unusual in this context, because there is no statute requiring the finding of additional facts to impose consecutive sentences. That requirement came from the Indiana Supreme Court in the early 80's.

When is the Supreme Court going to take care of the other really big Blakely boot that has not yet dropped--retroactivity?

Related Links:

1. Prior post about Ice
2. Transcript of argument