High Court Upholds Minimum Gun Penalty for ‘Bungling Bank Robber’
The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld an automatic 10-year penalty for a bank robber who accidentally fired his gun during the crime.
The Supreme Court ruled in a 7-2 decision (PDF) that accidental discharge of a weapon carries the same penalty as intentionally shooting a gun, the Associated Press reports.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote the majority opinion, SCOTUSblog reports. In his statement from the bench, Roberts called the dispute “the case of the bungling bank robber,” according to the AP account. The law “does not require that the discharge be done knowingly or intentionally,” Roberts said.
If criminals want to avoid the mandatory sentence for accidental gunfire, they can “lock or unload the firearm, handle it with care during the underlying violent or drug trafficking crime, leave the gun at home or—best yet—avoid committing the felony in the first place,” Roberts said.
The beginning of Roberts’ opinion reads: “Accidents happen. Sometimes they happen to individuals committing crimes with loaded guns.”
The case is Dean v. United States.
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