Watson v. United States

Watson v. United States
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 9, 2007 Decided December 10, 2007
Full case name	Michael A. Watson, Petitioner v. United States
Docket no.	06-571
Citations	552 U.S. 74 (more) 128 S. Ct. 579; 169 L. Ed. 2d 472
Case history
Prior	United States v. Watson, 191 F. App'x 326 (5th Cir. 2006); cert. granted, 549 U.S. 1251 (2007).
Holding
Smith v. United States (1993) holds that one "uses" a gun by giving it in exchange for drugs. A transaction in the opposite direction does not violate the same statute (one does not "use" a gun by receiving it in exchange for drugs).
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · David Souter Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito
Case opinions
Majority	Souter, joined by Roberts, Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Breyer, Alito
Concurrence	Ginsburg (in judgment)
Laws applied
18 U.S.C. § 924

Watson v. United States, 552 U.S. 74 (2007), is a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. The Court had earlier held in Smith v. United States (1993) that the exchange of a gun for drugs constituted "use" of a 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, the court 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, and Watson holds that one does not "use" a gun by receiving it in exchange for drugs).