Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Not so far from Teapot Dome

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In the Teapot Dome matter of the 1920s, Senator Albert Fall was convicted of receiving a bribe of $100,000 that multimillionaire oilmen Harry Sinclair and Edward Doheny were cleared of giving.

In our more enlightened age ---

From Wiki:

Smith v. United States, 508 U.S. 223 (1993), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States holding that the exchange a gun for drugs constituted "use" of the firearm for purposes of a federal statute imposing penalties for "use" of a firearm "during and in relation to" a drug trafficking crime.

In Watson v. United States, 128 S.Ct. 697 (2007) the court later decided that a transaction in the opposite direction does not violate the same statute (i.e., Smith holds that one "uses" a gun by giving it in exchange for drugs, but Watson holds that one does not "use" a gun by receiving it in exchange for drugs).

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