Court Opinion | Muscarello v. United States

Muscarello v. United States, 524 US 125 – Supreme Court 1998

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Muscarello, arrested for a drug deal, but having a gun locked in his glove compartment, argues that he did not “carry” a firearm. If Muscarello were “carrying” a firearm, then his drug-related crime would have ensured him a mandatory minimum 5-year sentence. Though predating what we consider Corpus Linguistics, Muscarello v. United States addresses the issue of lexical ambiguity and shows the need for more precise methods of linguistic analysis.