Case Summary: The Case Of Smith V. United States

In the case of Smith v. United States, the plaintiff, John Angus Smith, was convicted of engaging in drug-trafficking, which would have granted him a five year sentence had he not “used” a firearm in regards to the incident. As stated in statute 924(c)(1), the use of firearm in relations to a drug-trafficking crime enhanced the sentence, and turned it into a 30-year sentence. The argument at hand is whether the term “use” was to be taken from a broad dictionary definition or in the ordinary meaning. The majority of the court argued that the term “use” should not be limited to the intended use of the firearm (as a weapon) as they exemplified cases of which the firearm was used as a bludgeon even though that was not it’s intended purpose, yet