SCOTUS Humpty Dumpty

After overdosing on Democratic primary news recently, we now return to our regularly scheduled programming, which, at the moment, is a memo in support of a post-trial motion to acquit on charges of using a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.

In U.S. v. Sumler, 294 F.3d 579, 583 (3d Cir. 2002), the court is discussing what it means to "use" a firearm in connection with 18 U.S.C.S. § 924(c)(1)(A)(i). Specifically, can a person "use" a firearm when that person receives the firearm as payment for drugs? (The SCOTUS has settled the question of whether giving a gun in exchange for drugs is "use," but the circuits are split on the question of receiving.) Eventually, this court says "yes, receiving a gun as payment for drugs is 'use' for purposes of this statute," but along the way it has to respond to the counter-argument that "there  is no grammatically correct way to express that a person receiving a payment is thereby 'using' the payment." United States v. Westmoreland, 122 F.3d (7th Cir. 1997). To this the Sumler court says:

Although we grant legitimacy to that argument, we cannot evade the brute fact that the Supreme Court in both Bailey and Smith explained that the word "use" means "barter." We recall Judge Learned Hand's admonition, "but it is one of the surest indexes of a mature and developed jurisprudence not to make a fortress out of the dictionary . . . . " Cabel v. Markham, 148 F.2d 737, 739 (2d Cir. 1945). Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass stated it best when he said, "When I use a word . . . it means just what I choose it to mean neither more nor less." L. Carroll, Through the Looking Glass & What Alice Found There 124, reprinted in Journeys in Wonderland (Derrydale 1979). We too are not free to ignore a dictated definition.

The Third Circuit just compared the Supreme Court to Humpty Dumpty! I'm loving that.

Posted January 28, 2004 07:05 AM | law general law school