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Locked on 04/27/2005 5:07:26 PM PDT by Admin Moderator, reason:
Flamewar |
Posted on 04/26/2005 7:53:22 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that people convicted of a crime overseas may own a gun in the United States.
In a 5-3 decision, the court ruled in favor of Gary Sherwood Small of Pennsylvania. The court reasoned that U.S. law, which prohibits felons who have been convicted in "any court" from owning guns, applies only to domestic crimes.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing for the majority, said interpreting the law broadly to apply to foreign convictions would be unfair to defendants because procedural protections are often less in international courts. If Congress intended foreign convictions to apply, they can rewrite the law to specifically say so, he said.
"We have no reason to believe that Congress considered the added enforcement advantages flowing from inclusion of foreign crimes, weighing them against, say, the potential unfairness of preventing those with inapt foreign convictions from possessing guns," Breyer wrote.
He was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that Congress intended for foreign convictions to apply. "Any" court literally means any court, he wrote.
"Read naturally, the word 'any' has an expansive meaning, that is, 'one or some indiscriminately of whatever kind,"' Thomas said. He was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy.
Small had answered "no" to the felony conviction question on a federal form when he bought a handgun in 1998, a few days after he was paroled from a Japanese prison for violating weapons laws in that country. Small was indicted in 2000 for lying on the form and for illegally owning two pistols and 335 rounds of ammunition. He later entered a conditional guilty plea pending the outcome of this case.
The Bush administration had asked the court to apply the statute to foreign convictions. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist did not participate in deciding the case, which was heard in November when he was undergoing treatment for thyroid cancer.
The case is Small v. United States, 03-750. ------
I have no clue how this little creep got so lucky...
...[Small sent]...19-gallon electric water heater, ostensibly as a present for "his Papa-san in Okinawa." 3 Pet. C.A. App. 507-510, 521-525, 598. Small had sent two other water heaters to Japan earlier that year. Id. at 525-527. Considering it unusual for an individual to "go out of his way to bring a water tank from the U.S. as a present," id. at 598-599, Japanese Customs officials X-rayed the water heater upon its arrival and discovered firearms packaged inside. When petitioner appeared at the airport to accept delivery, he confirmed that the water heater was his, whereupon Customs officials served him with a search warrant. Upon opening the water heater, Customs officials discovered two rifles wrapped in black tape, eight pistols, and 410 ammunition shells. Id. at 603-604."
This is stupid.
Small had answered "no" to the felony conviction question on a federal form when he bought a handgun in 1998, a few days after he was paroled from a Japanese prison for violating weapons laws in that country. Small was indicted in 2000 for lying on the form and for illegally owning two pistols and 335 rounds of ammunition. He later entered a conditional guilty plea pending the outcome of this case.
>>>snip<<<
a Japanese Court convicted him. - not a US court
he entered a CONDITIONAL plea. -pending this case.
so - nope, he didn't lie.
Here is a link to the opinion. Find me the passage where it states that a conviction in a US court of lying on a document was the basis for his conviction of illegal weapons possession.
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/26apr20050800/www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/04pdf/03-750.pdf
Even the dissent does not say this, but rather their argument is:
Indisputably, Small was convicted in a Japanese court of crimes punish-able by a prison term exceeding one year. The clear terms of the statute prohibit him from possessing a gun in the United States.
No more red herring arguments.
Exactly. The outcome of this case determines whether he lied on the application.
did you take Constitutional Law?
i wonder because you mentioned (and understood) common law and original intent..
woops.... bad words.. sorry.
LOL
yeah, it's a real SOB that US Citizens can't be tried in some communist court and then hung for it when they make it home..
not
He is a gunrunner.
Japan is not communist.
Not worth hanging; waste of hemp; shoot him.
What's your problem? Is he the current arms supplier to the MinneMe's?
>>He is a gunrunner<< so said a court not of this Country
>>>Japan is not communist.<< irrelevant. it could have just as easily been a communist court - or ANY other countries court
>>Not worth hanging; waste of hemp; shoot him.<<
guess not. he has no convictions in US Court that i know of. if you find one i wil consider agreeing with you though.
>>What's your problem? Is he the current arms supplier to the MinneMe's?<< what's YOUR problem? our gvt is supposed to protect US Citizen's rights... and that bothers you? sheeesh.. what the heck are we paying them for? go read the the Declaration of Independence... it spells it out quite clearly:
WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed....
That to Secure these rights...
what don't you get about that?
He could have been (and I don't know the statute of limitations on this, but he possibly still could be brought up on charges of illegally exporting weapons without a permit) and had he been brought up on charges here and convicted by a U.S. jury here, the outcome would be very different.
here's another gripe about ol' King Georgie III according to the Declaration:
HE has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
........
FOR depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:
FOR transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:
FOR abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rules into these Colonies:
This whole concept of treating convictions in a foreign court as if they had the same legal status as a conviction in an American court, like the concept that the Supreme court should rely on foreign law and feelings in some of its rulings, is an assault not only on American sovereignty, but on the very concept of democratic law - that a citizen will be subject only to those laws passed by his democratically elected representatives . No American gets to vote on German law and should not be subject to that law except when he is in Germany. There is an increasing tendency for some countries, perhaps including this one, to pass laws they claim are binding on all people in the world, regardless of their location or citizenship. The owner of this website violates German hate speech laws everyday and it's quite possible that he could be convicted in absentia by a German court if it could be proved that a offended German viewed this site in Germany. The owner of this site would then be a felon by the standard being promoted by the Bush administration.
No. I am arguing that the statute makes no distinction -- as was the intent of Congress -- and as such the court cannot simply re-"interpret" the language to get the result they want.
By the way, the court did not affirm the right to keep and bear arms in this decision. Now, if they had ruled that the statute said what it actually said, then the argument that a foreign court cannot remove one's RKBA could have been made and the statute ruled unconstitutional. Instead, the court just ruled that Congress made a typo.
I didn't read the rest of your long post, as it seemed to have rested on a false assumption.
I am sure many of our forefathers were facing "crimes" in their home countries....the 2nd Amendment applied equally to them.
He's lucky he didn't pull this stunt during Tojo Hideki's rein. They would have cut the b*lls off this militia kook.
When he gets past 1L he'll realize there is no such thing in the FEDERAL court system as common law. As much as the border militia wants it to exist, it ain't there.
Unfortuately the militia crowd always invokes the Declaration of Independence when the Constitution fails them and when that fails we get back to those good old concepts from 1066, and if that doesn't make them feel morally superior to all of us peons who rely on written law, they invoke their God given rights (n.e.c.) which then leads me to wonder during the pre-game pep talks why God just doesn't fireball both teams for invoking His name just for luck...Me, I would rather bet on the San Diego Chicken...
Maybe it'll soak in sooner or later that what the court just did was allow international criminals to own guns here.
I hope the court comes to recognize that fact that gun runners are not in our best interests...and I pray the populace recognize that this is a prime example of the modern court playing to the press, given Bader's intemperate remarks about our need to recognize the sensibilities of the French.
This whole court should be horsewhipped.
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