Justices Sotomayor and Barrett question the state of federal sentencing commission
CNN
Liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by her conservative colleague Justice Amy Coney Barrett, raised concerns on Monday about disparities in the federal system over sentencing guidelines.
The United States Sentencing Commission has been unable to issue new guidelines to lower courts because the commission currently has an insufficient number of members to be able to reach a quorum, Sotomayor wrote for the duo in a statement.
"At this point, the Sentencing Commission has not had a quorum for three full years," Sotomayor wrote. She said as things stand, lower courts are currently divided on certain issues that could lead to "direct and severe" consequences for defendants' sentences.
President Joe Biden asserted Friday that Hamas has been degraded to a point where it can no longer carry out the type of attack that launched the current 8-month conflict in Gaza, laying out a three-phase proposal Israel has submitted to wind down the grinding crisis as he declared, “It’s time for this war to end.