Court Opinion

ID: 9488288
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:41:21.920784+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:48.600638
License: Public Domain

*1335RANDOLPH, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
The Oracle at Delphi would have been proud of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). The statute yields barely a clue about how to apply it to drug dealers who routinely arm themselves as they go about their awful business and, when caught, are charged only with one continuing drug offense. Reading and rereading my colleagues’ skillful efforts to parse the language only plunges me deeper into the fog. The arguments on both sides are pretty much in equipoise. The rule of lenity is, as I see it, the one path out. I therefore join Judge Silberman’s opinion.