The Supreme Court ruled 6–3 on May 23 in favor of the federal government in a case about how sentences under a federal three-strikes gun law should be imposed on defendants previously convicted of violent felonies or major drug offenses.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion in Brown v. United States, which was consolidated with Jackson v. United States. The vote did not break down along traditional conservative versus liberal ideological lines, with one liberal justice joining the majority and a conservative justice siding with dissenters.
