[DOWNLOAD] "United States V. Melendez" by Second Circuit U.S. Court Of Appeals # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free

January 02, 2021

eBook details

Title: United States V. Melendez
Author : Second Circuit U.S. Court Of Appeals
Release Date : January 26, 1995
Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
Pages : * pages
Size : 78 KB

Description

Among the issues on this appeal from convictions for drug and firearm crimes is a challenge to a conviction for using a firearm in relation to a drug trafficking crime. When the firearm, as here, is a machine gun, this conviction carries a mandatory 30-year sentence to run consecutively to any other sentence. The record reveals that this weapon was in defendant's girlfriend's apartment, a block away from where the drug trafficking crime took place. Defendant was arrested in the apartment where the machine gun chanced to be, and he was convicted for its use in a drug selling conspiracy. It would be naive to think defendant possessed such a lethal weapon for some innocent purpose. But, for a defendant to incur the heavy sentence enhancement, the proof must establish a connection between the firearm and the drug trafficking crime; conviction must come from proof, not chance. Absent that proof, such a conviction may not stand.