Jones v. United States

This case turns on whether the federal carjacking statute, 18 U. S. C. §2119, as it was when petitioner was charged, defined three distinct offenses or a single erime with a choice of three maximum penalties, two of them dependent on sentencing factors exempt from the requirements of charge and jury verdict. We think the better reading is of three distinct offenses, particularly in light of the rule that any interpretive uncertainty should be resolved to avoid serious questions about the statute’s constitutionality.

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In December 1992, petitioner, Nathaniel Jones, and two others, Oliver and…