Justice Gorsuch Joins Liberals to Deal Victory for Criminal Defendants
24th June 2019
Well, no; it was a victory for ordinary people.
The law at issue authorizes heightened penalties for individuals who use firearms to a commit a “crime of violence.”
“Only the people’s elected representatives in Congress have the power to write new federal criminal laws,” Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion. “And when Congress exercises that power, it has to write statutes that give ordinary people fair warning about what the law demands of them.”
“Vague laws transgress both of those constitutional requirements,” Gorsuch added. “They hand off the legislature’s responsibility for defining criminal behavior to unelected prosecutors and judges, and they leave people with no sure way to know what consequences will attach to their conduct.”
I have absolutely no problem with that. I’m liking this Gorsuch guy.