Reading tea leaves: Justice Gorsuch and criminal tax cases
See, e.g., United States v. Rentz, 777 F.3d 1105 (10th Cir. 2015) (Gorsuch, J.) (applying the rule of lenity to affirm dismissal of one of several charges requiring use of firearm because each charge required independent use of firearm); United States v. Games-Perez, 667 F.3d 1136, 1142-46 (10th Cir. 2012) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting) (criticizing the majority for upholding a felon-in-possession conviction without requiring the government to prove the defendant’s knowledge that he was a convicted felon); Damon Root, “On Criminal Justice and Executive Branch Power, Neil Gorsuch May Be More ‘Liberal’ Than Merrick Garland,” Reason, April 4, 2017; Addy R. Schmitt & Lauren Briggerman, “Where Will Gorsuch Stand on White-Collar Criminal Statute Limits?,” National Law Journal, March 27, 2017 (Gorsuch’s past opinions “constru[ing] criminal statutes narrowly and [holding] the prosecution to its burden of proving every element of an offense” suggest he may be in favor of limiting the reach of insider-trading prosecutions); Sam Hananel, “Neil Gorsuch could be the Supreme Court’s wild card in criminal justice cases,” Business Insider, March 14, 2017 (positioning Gorsuch as further left on criminal justice than some critics allow, while noting reservations based on certain decisions); C. Jarrett Dieterle, “Gorsuch v. Over-criminalization,” National Review, Feb. 24, 2017 (summarizing Gorsuch’s arguments against the proliferation of federal criminal provisions).
