On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard two cases, Brown v. United States and Jackson v. United States, involving men who were each sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for possessing a firearm. Although the oral arguments focused on an arcane issue of statutory interpretation, the cases nicely illustrate how gun laws and drug laws interact to magnify the injustice of each.
In 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit noted last year, police in York County, Pennsylvania, "conducted a series of controlled cocaine buys" from Justin Brown. They later obtained a search warrant for Brown's apartment, where they found cocaine, scales, money, and "a loaded .38 caliber Ruger LCR revolver tucked under the couch cushion where Brown had been sitting." Brown's prior drug offenses made his gun possession a violation of 18 USC 922(g)(1), which at the time was punishable by up to 10 years in prison. But when he was sentenced in 2021, Brown received an enhancement under 18 USC 924(e), a.k.a. the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), which transformed a 10-year maximum into a 15-year minimum.
