United States v. Tucker

At oral argument in this case, the members of the division of the court and counsel for both parties readily conceded a lack of prior personal knowledge of the narrow and novel legal principle at issue. Nonetheless, in presenting its contention that appellee became 18 in the eyes of the law on the day before his 18th birthday, the government was advocating a common law rule which had been unbroken for more than 300 years, with the single exception of a New York opinion which is quite cursory and lacking in analysis. People v. Stevenson, 17 N.Y.2d 682, 269 N.Y.S.2d 458, 216 N.E.2d 615 (1966),…