Federal Judiciary

Petitioner’s Brief in Burgess v. United States

By Akin Gump Supreme Court Practice Group

We filed this brief on behalf of the petitioner in Burgess v. United States, No. 06-11429, on Tuesday.  The case presents the question whether the 20-year mandatory minimum sentence imposed under 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A) ? which applies to individuals convicted of certain federal drug offenses who have a prior “felony drug offense” conviction ? applies to a defendant who was previously convicted of a state drug offense classified by the state as a misdemeanor by punishable by more than a year’s imprisonment.   The brief was prepared with the assistance of three students from our Winter Term Supreme Court Litigation class at Harvard: Nicholas Barnaby, Catherine McCaw, and Elyse Schneiderman. 

Full post as published by SCOTUSBLOG on January 23, 2008 (boomark / email).