Voisine v. United States Case at the Supreme Court Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Abstract The main purpose of this paper is to present a critique of the Voisine v. United States case handled by the Supreme Court on June 27, 2016. The case involved Stephen Voisine who had previously been convicted of a misdemeanor domestic violence case against his girlfriend. Because of this, he was charged with illegal possession of a firearm when it was later reported that he had killed a bald eagle using his rifle. The paper presents a summary of the facts of the case, the question posed by the defendants; the Supreme Court ruling and the vote count for the case. It further extends to give an opinion on the ruling made by the Supreme Court. From the …show more content…
the United States. Stephen Voisine is an American citizen who was convicted of assaulting a woman he seemed to be in a private relationship with. Being a family member, he was convicted under the argument that he caused injury to the woman ‘knowingly, intentionally, or recklessly’. His offense was a misdemeanor domestic violence assault. Similarly, he as arrested again in 2009 and charged with a federal misdemeanor charge of killing a bald eagle. The police recovered a rifle from his residence. Because of his previous history of misdemeanor assault conviction, he was charged with violating a federal statute that makes it a crime for a person with such a history to possess a firearm. A similar case befell William Armstrong III. He was convicted of a misdemeanor domestic violence in Maine’s state twice, in 2002 and 2008 (Oyez, n.d.). He was later caught with ammunition when the police were in search of drugs in his residence. The ammunition was linked to guns he had kept in a friend’s house. Thus, he was charged with violating a federal statute that makes it illegal to possess a firearm once convicted of a misdemeanor domestic violence (Oyez,