This Is One Of The Biggest Pending SCOTUS Cases You Haven’t Heard Of – IOTW Report

This Is One Of The Biggest Pending SCOTUS Cases You Haven’t Heard Of

DailyCaller: When Travis Beckles surrendered his sawed-off shotgun to a Miami detective, he almost certainly didn’t expect to instigate a chain of events that could lead to major changes in the way federal agencies operate.

When Beckles was taken into police custody in 2007, his girlfriend asked authorities to remove his gun from her residence; he directed officers to the weapon, concealed under his girlfriend’s mattress. He was later charged and convicted of one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm — Beckles had two prior felony drug convictions. Given these two convictions, the court determined that Beckles was a career offender. The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines (USSG), the set of rules which establish uniform sentencing practices across federal courts, instructed that his sentence should therefore be enhanced.

The court also ruled that Beckles’ possession of the shotgun constituted a “crime of violence,” which, per the USSG, also requires a sentence enhancement. The court ultimately sentenced Beckles to a 30-year prison term.

Beckles brought an appeal, Beckles v. U.S., in which he argued that his sentence was wrongly enhanced. He asserts that mere possession of a weapon does not constitute a “crime of violence,” and that his sentence enhancement should therefore be vacated. His appeal was rejected by the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear his case in late June.

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10 Comments on This Is One Of The Biggest Pending SCOTUS Cases You Haven’t Heard Of

  1. The full article never did tell us what he was arrested for. Assuming it was a lawful arrest for an actual crime (i.e., one with a victim), then the base sentence should stand, of course. But the enhancements are bullshit and, regardless of the lawmakers’ intent, are used by lazy and/or overburdened prosecutors to pressure defendants to plea bargain. I strongly disapprove of that.

  2. This is a good example of why nobody should comply with any gun law that infringes on the 2nd Amendment.

    Compliance leads to confiscation, eventually.

    This country and the bureaucrats that enslave the people within it, only endeavor to criminalize the law-abiding – because they can’t control free law-abiding people.

    Remember, nobody can ever truly FORCE you to do anything you don’t want to do. Compliance requires acquiescence.

  3. @Dadof4: ICYDK, Travis Bickle was the character played by Robert DeNiro in “Taxi Driver” (“You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?…”). Jodie Foster played Iris.

    🙂

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