{"id":576757,"date":"2010-05-24T14:16:49","date_gmt":"2010-05-24T18:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jurist.org\/paperchase\/2010\/05\/supreme-court-rules-on-mandatory-minimum-sentencing-for-federal-gun-crimes.php"},"modified":"2010-05-24T14:16:49","modified_gmt":"2010-05-24T18:16:49","slug":"supreme-court-rules-on-mandatory-minimum-sentencing-for-federal-gun-crimes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/576757","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court rules on mandatory minimum sentencing for federal gun crimes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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[JURIST] The US Supreme Court<\/a> [official website; JURIST news archive<\/a>] on Monday ruled<\/a> [opinion, PDF] unanimously in United States v. O’Brien<\/a> [Cornell LII backgrounder] that the question of whether a firearm is a machine gun must be proved to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt and is not a sentencing factor to be considered by the judge by a preponderance of the evidence. The court held that the type of firearm used in perpetrating a crime was an element of the crime under mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines. The government had attempted to extend the sentence of the respondents under 18 USC s. 924(c)<\/a> [text], which sets a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years for using a machine gun during a crime. The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled<\/a> [opinion, PDF] that such a determination should be made by a jury. In doing so, the court relied on statutory interpretation outlined by the Supreme Court in Castillo v. United States<\/a> [opinion, PDF; Cornell LII backgrounder<\/a>] in interpreting a previous version of s. 924(c), creating a circuit split. The First Circuit held that the amendment to the statute had not altered the holding of Castillo<\/u>. In upholding the decision below, Justice Anthony Kennedy explained:<\/p>\n

Th[e] structural or stylistic change … does not provide a “clear indication” that Congress meant to alter its treatment of machineguns as an offense element. A more logical explanation for the restructuring is that it broke up a lengthy principal paragraph, which exceeded 250 words[,] … into a more readable statute. This is in step with current legislative drafting guidelines, which advise drafters to break lengthy statutory provisions into separate subsections that can be read more easily. … These points are overcome, however, by the substantial weight of the other Castillo factors and the principle that Congress would not enact so significant a change without a clear indication of its purpose to do so. The evident congressional purpose was to amend the statute to … make [it] more readable but not otherwise to alter the substance of the statute. The analysis and holding of Castillo<\/u> control this case. The machinegun provision in [s.] 924(c)(1)(B)(ii) is an element of an offense.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Justice John Paul Stevens filed a concurring opinion, and Justice Clarence Thomas filed an opinion concurring in the judgment only.<\/p>\n

Respondents Martin O’Brien and Arthur Burgess made a failed attempt to rob an armored car in 2005, using a firearm that the FBI alleged had been modified to operate as a fully-automatic weapon. The court heard oral arguments<\/a> [transcript, PDF; JURIST report<\/a>] in February. Counsel for the petitioner, the US government, argued that the language of the statute requires a judge to make the determination. Counsel for the respondents argued that such a result is foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s statutory interpretation jurisprudence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[JURIST] The US Supreme Court [official website; JURIST news archive] on Monday ruled [opinion, PDF] unanimously in United States v. O’Brien [Cornell LII backgrounder] that the question of whether a firearm is a machine gun must be proved to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt and is not a sentencing factor to be considered by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6950,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-576757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6950"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}