A good friend of the Bosque Boys, Baylor Law Professor Mark Osler, is on tour this week arguing before the 9th and 8th Circuit Courts (he argued before the 2nd two weeks ago). Although he is working in cahoots with the ACLU (he may even be a card-carrying member), we are nevertheless interested in Professor Osler's work and wish him well.

For some background on the case, which has to do with the old federal sentencing guidelines, which were deemed advisory rather than mandatory in the Booker case (January 2005), please see Douglas Berman's blog, Sentencing Law and Policy and, specifically, this round-up on Booker from the time of the decision.

The reassessment of Booker left open for reconsideration the statutory practice of sentencing crack cocaine possession at a ratio of 100:1 (100 times harsher) than powder cocaine possession. Among the multiple reasons why that ratio came into being, Professor Osler argues that race figured (and continues to figure) prominently.

For breaking news and background, again I recommend Berman's website: this post from Wednesday and the previous post from Tuesday and a whole host of links connected to those posts.

Good luck, Professor Osler. We are hoping that you will sit down at some point this summer and reflect on your experiences with these three circuit courts and share them with the Bosque Boys Community.