Chief Justice Roberts’s opening line in Dean v. United States is a zinger: “Accidents happen. Sometimes they happen to individuals committing crimes with loaded guns.”Yesterday’s New York Times had a terrific article about Dean. Mr. Dean is a bankrobber whose gun accidentally went off during a heist. He was sentenced to eighteen years, which included a federal mandatory sentence for committing a crime in which a firearm was discharged.
The New York Times piece culls two other great lines from the case:
- At the argument last month, Justice Antonin Scalia asked Mr. Dean’s lawyer for an example of a gun discharge during a bank robbery that would not qualify. Justice Stephen G. Breyer jumped in. “He sees a duck fly by the window and he’s a hunter,” Justice Breyer said, referring, perhaps, to one of Justice Scalia’s pastimes.
- Chief Justice Roberts offered potential bank robbers some advice. “Those criminals wishing to avoid the penalty for an inadvertent discharge,” he said, “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.”
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