We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.
SUPREME COURT GRANT CERTIORARI TO ANOTHER ARMED CAREER CRIMINAL CASE
In the last few years, it’s been a great time to be an armed career criminal. Not really (we don’t recommend doing it at any time), but the Armed Career Criminal Act has been the focus of the Court’s attention both directly (Johnson v. United States, Mathis v. United States and Rehaif v. United States) as well as indirectly (United States v. Beckles, Sessions v. Dimaya and United States v. Davis).
A quick primer: 18 USC 922(g) provides that certain classes of people – convicted felons, drug abusers, fugitives, illegal aliens – are prohibited from possessing guns and ammo (the actual items, not just the magazine). If you are convicted of a § 922(g) offense, you face a maximum of 10 years in prison. But, if you have three prior convictions for drug felonies, crimes of violence or a combination of the two, you fall under the Armed Career Criminal Act (18 USC § 924(e)), and your penalty starts at 15 years and goes all the way to life in prison.
Ever since the 2016 Supreme Court decision in Voisine v. United States, most appellate courts have been holding that a crime committed with a mens rea of recklessness was enough to establish the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force. Junior Walton discovered 13 bullets in a rooming house that he managed and removed them for safekeeping. He was convicted of possessing ammunition as a felon, in violation of 18 USC 922(g)(1) and sentenced under the Armed Career Criminal Act to 15 years. The application of the ACCA turned on whether one of his past convictions, which could be committed with a mens rea of recklessness, qualified as a violent felony under the ACCA’s force clause.
The district court said it did not. The 6th Circuit, with several dissenting judges, said it did in an en banc proceeding. Last week, the Supreme Court granted cert to Junior on the question of whether a criminal offense that can be committed with a mens rea of recklessness can qualify as a “violent felony” under the ACCA.
The case, which will be decided by the end of June 2020, could further limit the kinds of prior convictions that will support an ACCA sentence. Just in time, too: last week Attorney General William Barr announced a new DOJ initiative, Project Guardian, intended to “increase scrutiny of people convicted of violent felonies or domestic violence, potentially reducing their access to firearms.”
Walker v United States, Case No. 19-373 (cert. granted Nov. 15)
New York Times, Justice Dept. Unveils Gun Plan, Sidestepping a Preoccupied Washington (Nov. 13)
– Thomas L. Root