The Supremes make a predictably bad decision allowing Justice Scalia's duck-hunting partner to keep his energy records sealed at least through the election: The Bush administration won't have to reveal secret details of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force before the election, after the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a lower court should spend more time sorting out the White House's privacy claim. In a 7-2 decision, justices said the lower court should consider whether a federal open government law could be used to get task force documents. Even if that court rules against the administration, appeals would tie up the case well past November. And an unexpectedly just - and perhaps momentous - one, written by, of all people, Justice Scalia: The Supreme Court invalidated the criminal sentencing system of the State of Washington on Thursday in a decision that also cast doubt on whether the 20-year-old federal sentencing guidelines can survive a constitutional challenge. Bitterly split in a 5-to-4 decision that cut across the court's usual ideological lines, the justices continued a profound five-year-long debate over the respective roles of judges and juries in criminal sentencing. In this case, they ratcheted that debate up to a new level that left the federal guidelines in constitutional limbo and cast doubt on the validity of thousands of sentences, at both the state and federal level. Sentencing in about a dozen states is likely to be affected by the ruling...In the Washington guidelines case, Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion held that the Washington system, permitting judges to make findings that increase a convicted defendant's sentence beyond the ordinary range for the crime, violated the right to trial by jury protected by the Sixth Amendment. The facts supporting increased sentences must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt, Justice Scalia said.