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Justice Breyer talking up Rule of Lenity when interpreting statutes with mandatory minimum sentencing terms

By Douglas A. Berman

As detailed in this recent post, the Supreme Court yesterday heard oral argument in Flores-Figueroa v. United States, which deals with the reach of the federal aggravated identity theft statute.  When first scanning the oral argument transcript, these comments from Justice Breyer jumped off the page: In the case of mandatory-minimum sentences, there is a particularly strong argument for a Rule of Lenity with bite.  And that is because mandatory minimums, given the human condition, inevitably throw some people into the box who shouldn't be there.  And if this person should be there and we put him outside, the judge could give him the same sentence anyway. So the harm by mistakenly throwing a person outside the box through the Rule of Lenity to the government is small...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on February 26, 2009 (boomark / email).