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Keep It Simple, Stupid!

The Richmond Times-Dispatch (via How Appealing) has a fantastic story about law students using simple language. Heretofore, lawyers have felt the need to contort the English language to make their arguments ipso facto. But every once in a while, a word is just a word. A group of law students at the University of Virginia took a case to the Supreme Court arguing for a plain-language meaning of the word "use," and they won!

Here are the facts of the case: Michael Watson attempted to buy a handgun from a government informant and offered doses of OxyContin to make the purchase. Watson was charged with using a firearm while selling drugs.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot? I didn't know that Bill Clinton had become a federal prosecutor. Who else could bend the meaning of the word "use" to fit this situation. And that is exactly what the students told the Supreme Court:

The gist of the student's argument was that "use," in plain English, does not mean that accepting a gun as payment is "using" it. In other words, Watson received the gun but in fact didn't use it at all.

"How would you understand it in ordinary English?" Stancil asked. "Could Congress have meant 'use' means receipt? We thought we had much the better of that argument."

By a 9-0 vote, the Supreme Court agreed. Justice David H. Souter, writing the Dec. 10 opinion, said the government's position that Watson "used" the pistol by receiving it for narcotics "lacks authority in either precedent or regular English."

By the way, I didn't know that "regular English" holds legal authority in the same way precedent does. This takes framer's intent to a whole new level.

It pains me to say this, given where I went to college, but way to go UVA students!

Full post as published by Supreme Dicta on January 07, 2008 (boomark / email).