Gorsuch Sides With Libs Against Tough Gun Crime Sentences, Kavanaugh Suggests Ruling Will Be A Disaster

President Trump's two Supreme Court picks, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, were on opposing sides once again Monday in a case centering on whether a law that slaps harsher penalties on certain gun possession cases is unconstitutionally vague.

Gorsuch sided with liberal justices in a 5-4 decision in United States v. Davis, for which he wrote the opinion of the court. The law in question calls for longer sentences when a person uses a firearm in connection with a "crime of violence," which is defined as a felony "that by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense." That definition is rather confusing, Gorsuch said.

"Even the government admits that this language ... provides no reliable way to determine which offenses qualify as crimes of violence and thus is unconstitutionally vague," he wrote. Vague laws leave it to unelected attorneys and judges to determine what acts qualify as crimes, Gorsuch said, when it is really Congress' job to make that decision with the laws that they pass.



In the current case, Maurice Davis [pictured right] and Andre Glover [pictured left] were convicted of robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery under the Hobbs Act, which covers robbery, attempted robbery, or extortion affecting interstate commerce. They were each hit with longer sentences because robbery and conspiracy were found to be "crimes of violence." An appeals court found that the clause in the statute defining crimes of violence was unconstitutionally vague.

"The Court’s decision today will make it harder to prosecute violent gun crimes in the future," Kavanaugh wrote. "The Court’s decision also will likely mean that thousands of inmates who committed violent gun crimes will be released far earlier than Congress specified when enacting §924(c)."

Kavanaugh addressed the two recent cases Gorsuch referenced where laws were held to be vague, saying those laws applied to gun cases where defendants had committed violent crimes in the past. The law in the current case adds harsher sentences for the same offense where the gun was used. As a result, he claimed, it makes sense to look at the specific offense.

"Why would we interpret a federal law that criminalizes current-offense conduct to focus on a hypothetical defendant rather than on the actual defendant?" he asked, calling this a "gaping hole" in the majority's analysis.

Anyone associated with the 1994 Crime Bill will not have a chance of being elected. In particular, African Americans will not be able to vote for you. I, on the other hand, was responsible for Criminal Justice Reform, which had tremendous support, & helped fix the bad 1994 Bill!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2019

....Super Predator was the term associated with the 1994 Crime Bill that Sleepy Joe Biden was so heavily involved in passing. That was a dark period in American History, but has Sleepy Joe apologized? No!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2019

In a 1993 speech, Joe Biden warned of "predators on our streets" and said that "those people" were "beyond the pale" and that they must be removed from the rest of society pic.twitter.com/v3pkUyGt6J

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) May 27, 2019

Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden in 1975 on reparations for blacks:

"I don't feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather... I'll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago."pic.twitter.com/8OibqY0fNt

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) May 27, 2019