High court upholds added sentences for use of guns in drug crimes

People convicted of possessing a gun while selling drugs are subject to five-year mandatory minimum sentences on top of most other sentences, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

The ruling was the first signed decision of the term, and it was unanimous. But the court's newest member, Justice Elena Kagan, did not participate, having disqualified herself in light of her work as United States solicitor general.

The decision involved two defendants whose cases had been consolidated. One of them, Kevin Abbott of Philadelphia, was convicted of drug trafficking, a related gun charge with the five-year minimum, and under a law requiring a 15-year minimum sentence for career criminals. Only the latter two charges figured in his sentence, and the trial judge added them together for a total of 20 years.

The second defendant, Carlos R. Gould of Wichita Falls, Texas, pleaded guilty to a drug charge involving cocaine with a 10-year minimum sentence and the related gun charge with a five-year minimum. The trial court gave him a little more than the minimum on the drug charge — 11 years and five months — and then added five years for the gun charge.

The question in the case was what Congress meant when it revised a 1968 federal gun control law in 1998 by, among other things, adding a new preface saying the five-year minimum for having or using guns while selling drugs applied "except to the extent that a greater minimum sentence is otherwise provided."

Abbott argued that his 15-year-sentence for being a career criminal was such a greater minimum sentence and that it should cancel out the additional five years for the gun charge. Gould said the same thing about his 10-year sentence.

Also yesterday, the justices said they will not stop subpoenas issued to an advocate for chronic pain patients who is under investigation for obstruction of justice.

Siobhan Reynolds and her organization, the Pain Relief Network, are being investigated because of her involvement with a doctor and wife who illegally prescribed painkillers to dozens of patients who later died. The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from Reynolds.

(Published by The Boston Globe - November 16, 2010)