Michael A. Watson v. United States (552 U.S. 74)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided December 10, 2007 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 552 U.S. 74 · 128 S. Ct. 579
- Decided
- December 10, 2007
- Term
- October Term 2007
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Souter
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court. The question is whether a person who trades his drugs for a gun “uses” a firearm “during and in relation to . . . [a] drug trafficking crime” within the meaning of 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1)(A). We hold that he does not. I A Section 924(c)(1)(A) sets a mandatory minimum sentence, depending on the facts, for a defendant who, “during and in relation to any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime[,] ... uses or carries a firearm.” The statute leaves the term “uses” undefined, though we have spoken to it twice before. Smith v. United States, 508 U. S. 223 (1993), raised the converse of today’s question, and held that “a criminal who trades his firearm for drugs ‘uses’ it during and in relation to a drug trafficking offense within the meaning of § 924(c)(1).” Id., at 241. We rested primarily on the “ordinary or natural meaning” of the verb in context, id., at 228, and understood its common range as going beyond employment as a weapon: “it is both reasonable and normal to say that petitioner ‘used’ his MAC-10 in his drug trafficking offense by trading it for cocaine,” id., at 230. Two years later, the issue in Bailey v. United States, 516 U. S. 137 (1995), was whether possessing a firearm kept near the scene of drug trafficking is “use” under § 924(c)(1). We looked again to “ordinary or natural” meaning, id., at 145, and decided…
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