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Might the Harris limit on Apprendi be questioned in O'Brien/Burgess argument?

By Douglas A. Berman

As detailed in this post at SCOTUSblog, on Tuesday morning the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in United States v. O'Brien and Burgess, a combined pair of cases concerning the application of the machine-gun mandatory minimum sentencing enhancement of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c).  As regular readers may recall from posts here and here back when cert was granted in these cases, the Apprendi Sixth Amendment line of cases (and especially the Harris mandatory minimum exception) may be in play and at issue in these case. After reviewing the merits briefs in O'Brien and Burgess (which are available here thanks to the ABA), my gut tells me that the Justices will be drawn to ruling for the defendants on statutory interpretation grounds, which will allow the Court to dodge all the tough constitutional questions that a ruling for the government could present...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on February 22, 2010 (boomark / email).