LETTING JUDGES BE JUDGES
With Democrats in control on Capitol Hill, federal judges are looking hopefully to Congress for signs that it will revisit mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines, Lynette Clemetson reports in The New York Times. Enacted by Congress in 1986, federal sentencing guidelines have been widely criticized for inhibiting judicial discretion in choosing the duration of prison terms (or deciding whether to send a defendant to prison at all). The most commonly cited disparity within the federal guidelines is between sentencing for offenses involving powder and crack cocaine. The House Judiciary Committee is planning hearings on the laws within the next few weeks, but the Senate Judiciary Committee says it isn’t planning hearings on the issue. (Clemetson’s story could benefit from more background about uniform sentencing policies and the 2005 Supreme Court decision in United States v. Booker, which found that the guidelines should be discretionary. That decision was essentially the invitation — or impetus — for Congress to create a better remedy.) Still, Democratic leadership isn't seen as a surefire promise for a repeal or even revamp of the overall guidelines. "Candidly, the Democrats were never particularly courageous on this issue either," federal district court judge and Clinton appointee Judge Nancy Gertner told the Times. “But at least now it seems judges may be encouraged to be a part of the discussion. And if asked to speak up, I think many will.”

TAXING A REPUTATION
Lawyer Francis Decker, Jr., helped the tobacco industry navigate a tangle of legal challenges. But he couldn’t seem to stick on the right side of the law when it came to the tax man. The New York Post reports that the 70-year-old former Latham & Watkins partner specialized in two things: defending tobacco companies and not paying his own taxes. As part of a plea agreement, he’ll fork over $1.5 million to the IRS and serve 45 days in prison for failing to report $4.5 million gross income over the last eight years. “If you don't file any tax returns at all, you can fly under the radar,” Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said in announcing the plea. The amazing thing? This guy, who prosecutors say may not have filed any tax returns at all for the last quarter century, has the highest peer rating for ethics in the lawyer directory Martindale Hubbell. (He has an AV ranking — “a testament to the fact that a lawyer's peers rank him or her at the highest level of professional excellence.”)

STANDARD OF CARE
A lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court accuses the New York City Department of Education and two school nurses of providing “insufficient medical care” for a boy who died shortly after he left his Brooklyn elementary school having an asthma attack, the Daily News tells us. The nurse on duty says that she did not call 911 because, according to school policy, she can’t unless the principal authorizes her to do so. In a deposition, former nurse Maryellen Johnson said that when fifth-grader Shawn Martinez was having an asthma attack, the principal couldn’t be found. The boy’s mother took him to home and then to a hospital, where he died.

 
BLOCK'S BLOCK UNBLOCKED
A decision by Eastern District Judge Frederic Block refusing to block the prosecution's request for the death penalty was upheld by a federal appellate court Monday. The defense argued that the government had failed to properly notify the defendant that they were seeking capital punishment. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit dismissed Kenneth McGriff's appeal for lack of jurisdiction, the New York Law Journal reports. There are few exceptions in which criminal cases are reviewable before they are complete and the sentence is rendered — and this wasn't one of them the court ruled. McGriff's trial begins in Brooklyn today.