The Long Arm of the Law
I want to begin by thanking Dean O’Hear and Marquette University Law School for the opportunity to be October 2009’s “Alum Blogger of the Month.”
Roman Polanksi, a famous director of movies such as Chinatown and The Pianist, was recently arrested in Switzerland 32 years after he fled the United States after pleading guilty to a child sex offense in California. According to Grand Jury testimony given by then 13 year-old Samantha Gailey, (viewable at the Smoking Gun website), Polanksi approached her to take pictures to be published in a magazine. Gailey and her mother agreed and she went with him to Jack Nicholson’s home on March 10, 1977 to take pictures (apparently Jack wasn’t home that day, just an unknown woman). After giving Gailey champagne while taking additional pictures of her, Polanski then gave her a Quaalude, which is a sedative similar in effect to barbiturates.
The Seventh Circuit continues to struggle with the question of what it means for the federal sentencing guidelines to be “advisory.” In United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), the Supreme Court held that the then-mandatory guidelines system violated the Sixth Amendment. The Court corrected the constitutional problem by converting the guidelines from mandatory to advisory. Then, in Kimbrough v. United States, 128 S. Ct. 558 (2007), the Court confirmed what even the government had recognized and conceded: “advisory” means that a district court judge may impose a sentence outside the recommended guidelines range on the basis of a policy disagreement with the guidelines.
The Seventh Circuit had only one new opinion in a criminal case last week, but, fortunately, it was an interesting one. Under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), it is a federal crime for felons to possess a firearm. Proof of the crime is easy enough when a felon is found actually carrying a gun. But what if the gun is nowhere on his person, but merely, say, in his home?