In a controversial move, the Supreme Court came down with a ruling last week that eases punishments for gun crimes.  

According to The Epoch Times, the nation's highest judicial body held this past Friday that sentences for some federal firearm offenses can run concurrently.

Case involved drug related murder in New York City

The case involved Efrain Lora, who along with three other individuals trafficked cocaine murdered a rival drug dealer in 2002 in New York City.

In addition to conspiracy to distribute drugs, Lora was also found guilty of aiding and abetting a person who is using or carrying a firearm during a drug trafficking or violent crime and who then "causes the death of a person through the use of a firearm."

He was subsequently sentenced to 25 years in prison for conspiracy to distribute drugs along with an additional five years for the firearm-related charge.

Lora's case was presided over by U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe, who concluded that he was legally bound to make the defendant's sentences consecutive.

Dispute concerned two provisions of the United States Code

However, Lora's attorneys disagreed, arguing that Gardephe would have been permitted to have both sentences run concurrently.

At issue were two provisions of the United States Code (U.S.C) which appeared to be in conflict. Under subsection (c) of 18 U.S.C. 924, "no term of imprisonment imposed on a person under this subsection shall run concurrently with any other term of imprisonment imposed on the person."

Yet subsection (j) of 18 U.S.C. 924, which covers other offenses and corresponding penalties, omits any prohibition on the use of concurrent sentences.

While an appeals court affirmed Lora's sentence, the justices sided with him in a unanimous decision which was authored by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Jackson: "We must implement the design Congress chose"

"Congress could certainly have designed the penalty scheme at issue here differently. But Congress did not do any of these things. And we must implement the design Congress chose," she wrote.

"Subsection (c)’s consecutive-sentence mandate applies only to the terms of imprisonment prescribed within subsection (c). A sentence imposed under subsection (j) does not qualify," Jackson explained.

"Subsection (j) is located outside subsection (c) and does not call for imposing any sentence from subsection (c)," she continued.

"Combining the two subsections would set them on a collision course; indeed, in some cases, the maximum sentence would be lower than the minimum sentence," the justice went on to add.