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Which of the varied visions of Vrdolyak might emerge victorious?

By Douglas A. Berman

As detailed in this post yesterday, a split panel of the Seventh Circuit reversed a prominent sentence of five-years' probation (plus 2500 hours of community service) for a prominent former Chicago politician in US v. Vrdolyak, No. 09-1891 (7th Cir. Jan. 29, 2010) (available here).  I have just had a chance to read the two lengthy opinions in Vrdolyak, and I am taken (though not surprised) by how differently Vrdolyak and his initial sentencing appear in the different opinions.  This full decision is a must-read for sentencing fans just to see how distinctly circuit judges considering an appeal can sometimes view a defendant and a district judge's assessment of that defendant. As noted before in my prior post, Judge Posner concludes that a "cascade of errors and omissions [by the district court] cannot be dismissed as harmless, and so requires that the defendant be resentenced...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 30, 2010 (boomark / email).