Top Gun Rights Group Backs White Supremacist's Supreme Court Case

Cranky

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Since the article's original title is somewhat (IMO) misleading, thought I'd add this as well:

Samuel Johnson isn't exactly a lawyer's dream client. He's a white supremacist with a lengthy rap sheet who a couple years ago was accused of plotting an attack on a Mexican consulate. He ended up drawing a 15-year prison term on a gun charge, and his case is now on his way to the US Supreme Court, which has agreed to hear a challenge to his sentence. Johnson has won the vocal backing of a top gun rights group, but as his case moves forward, it may eventually draw support from some liberals and civil libertarians who oppose harsh mandatory minimum sentences.

Politics makes for strange bedfellows, indeed. And I do believe they are correct with the bolded.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/09/gun-owners-of-america-samuel-johnson-neo-nazi

The only thing is, I don't know how sympathetic this guy is, what with his "lengthy rap sheet". Mandatory minimums seem far more pernicious to me when they are applied to first time offenders, not career criminals and white supremacists.
 

clintl

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For a guy like this, who was basically plotting a terrorist attack? I have no problem with locking him up for 15 years.
 

Amadan

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For a guy like this, who was basically plotting a terrorist attack? I have no problem with locking him up for 15 years.

He wasn't sentenced to 15 years for plotting a terrorist attack - he was sentenced to 15 years for illegal gun possession. That's the issue.
 

Cranky

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He wasn't sentenced to 15 years for plotting a terrorist attack - he was sentenced to 15 years for illegal gun possession. That's the issue.


Exactly. And while I think they couldn't have picked a worse poster boy, the point still stands.
 

clintl

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He wasn't sentenced to 15 years for plotting a terrorist attack - he was sentenced to 15 years for illegal gun possession. That's the issue.

I still think it's an appropriate sentence for someone with his criminal history. He obviously has no qualms about using guns for illegal activity.
 

Amadan

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I still think it's an appropriate sentence for someone with his criminal history. He obviously has no qualms about using guns for illegal activity.


I don't think you understand how the U.S. justice system worksis supposed to work, then.

Not to mention, he wasn't given that sentence because of his history, he was given that sentence because of a mandatory sentencing law. He could have been a Boy Scout before this and still gotten the same sentence.
 

Don

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Isn't he precisely the type of criminal ACCA was intended to handle? I don't see a problem here, and I'm about as civil libertarian as they come. Sometimes when you have an Al Capone running loose, the best you can do is a tax evasion rap.
 

rugcat

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He wasn't sentenced to 15 years for plotting a terrorist attack - he was sentenced to 15 years for illegal gun possession. That's the issue.
Or, to make it clearer, it was for possession of an illegal gun.

It wasn't just that as a felon he did not have the right to possess a gun. He possessed a gun that no one has a legal right to possess without a special permit-- a sawed-off shotgun.

Now, the question remains whether simple possession of such a weapon is an example of violent conduct comparable to a burglary or robbery. Given the fact that a sawed-off shotgun is a weapon almost exclusively designed for criminal activity, and given his previous violent record, I can see a case being made for that.

There is certainly a principle in law about being tried for your actions, not your history. To do otherwise certainly can lead to abuse of the legal system and selective prosecution.

On the other hand, if a man twice convicted of violent rapes is found hiding in the bushes outside a women's sorority at 2 AM, I'm all for coming up with some sort of charge that will put him away for as long as possible.

You could make the argument that hiding in bushes is not a crime, and that the man's previous record has nothing to do with how you charge him. But although I am adamantly opposed to mandatory minimum sentences and troubled by examples of prosecutorial overreach, I'm all for taking such an individual off the streets for as long as possible.
 

Amadan

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Rereading the article, I realize I missed the detail that the ACCA specifically applies to thrice-convicted criminals - so my comment that "he could have been a Boy Scout" previously was incorrect.

That does put the case in a slightly different light, though I still have deep misgivings about mandatory sentencing and "three strikes" laws.
 

blacbird

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I bet a nickel that even this incarnation of the U.S. Supremes upholds this sentence. This Court doesn't seem to me to be likely to make a landmark ruling on the constitutionality of mandatory minimum sentences.

I could be wrong. It happened once last year. But in this case, even if the issue of mandatory minimums is on the table, given all the court-entered information, the sentence in question seems appropriate, maybe even lenient. A mandatory minimum sentence does not restrict a judge from imposing an even longer one, depending on legal guidelines. This dude could have got worse, IMO.

I'm not comfortable with mandatory minimums being imposed on first-time offenders for nonviolent offenses. BUT:

The issue of criminal history of a defendant is germane, and not uncommonly taken into account. It does matter whether this is a first offense, or if the offender has a publicly-documented history of many other legal offenses.

caw