The central question is whether the federal sentencing guidelines impermissibly empower judges to perform a function the Constitution reserves for jurors. How the high court answers that question will have implications not only for how federal sentences are meted out, but also for how indictments are written, trials conducted, and plea bargains negotiated.

The fate of the sentencing guidelines first arose three months ago on June 24 when the Supreme Court announced a 5-to-4 decision striking down a portion of Washington State's sentencing guidelines scheme. In that case Ralph Blakely had pleaded guilty to kidnapping his estranged wife. The plea deal called for a 53-month sentence. But at Mr. Blakely's sentencing hearing, the judge rejected the deal after deciding Blakely had acted with "deliberate cruelty."

Under Washington State's guidelines, that extra finding by the judge boosted the overall sentence from 53 to 90 months - adding more than three years to the punishment.

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said the judge had performed a job reserved for a jury. "The Framers would not have thought it too much to demand that, before depriving a man of three more years of his liberty, the state should suffer the modest inconvenience of submitting its accusation [to a jury], rather than a lone employee of the state [a judge]," Justice Scalia writes.

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