Justices Narrow Repeat-Offender Law | Supreme Court Asked To Keep Eviction Pause In Place
June 11, 2021
HISTORY REPEATING
|SCOTUS yesterday narrowed the scope of the federal Armed Career Criminal Act in a split 5-4 decision. The law imposes enhanced sentences on repeat offenders with histories of violent felonies, mandating a 15-year minimum sentence for possessing a gun if the person has been convicted of three or more violent felonies. JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS and NEIL GORSUCH joined their liberal colleagues to limit the reach of the law. JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN wrote for the majority. Robert Barnes with The Washington Post reports.
MERELY RECKLESS
|Adam Liptak with The New York Times explains yesterday’s case on repeat offenders in which justices ruled that “violent felonies committed recklessly — as opposed to intentionally or knowingly — do not count as strikes.” Liptak notes that the case concerned a man, Charles Borden Jr., who pleaded guilty to a federal gun crime. “Prosecutors sought to impose the mandatory 15-year sentence based on three earlier convictions, one of them in Tennessee for reckless assault. That conviction, Mr. Borden argued, should not count as a strike. Lower courts rejected his argument, and he was sentenced under the career-criminal law. JUSTICE ELENA KAGAN, writing for four justices, disagreed, saying the law excluded crimes in which the defendant had merely been reckless.”
AGAIN AND AGAINST
|Jess Bravin with The Wall Street Journal also covers yesterday’s Supreme Court decision on the Armed Career Criminal Act and notes, “As with some other recent cases, Thursday’s decision boiled down to the meaning of a single word. Here, the term was ‘against,’ as used in statutory language increasing sentences for felons previously convicted of crimes involving ‘the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another.’ The government’s brief argued that “against” was a neutral preposition describing physical contact itself, ‘like waves crashing “against” the shore or a baseball hitting “against” the outfield fence.’ Charles Borden Jr., who had three priors for aggravated assault when he pleaded guilty in 2018 to being a felon in possession of a firearm, contended that ‘against’ conveyed something more: violence specifically targeted at another person.”
OTHER NEWS
Supreme Court Asked To Keep Eviction Pause In Place
The Hill“The Biden administration, backed by nearly two dozen Democratic state attorneys general, asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to leave intact a temporary nationwide pause on evictions. The request comes after a group of landlords asked the court last week to effectively end the eviction moratorium put in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help financially distressed renters remain in their homes amid the pandemic.”
Biden's Pick For Appeals Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Clears Senate Hurdle Despite GOP Opposition
USA Today“President Joe Biden’s nominee for a powerful appeals court who is also being watched as a potential future Supreme Court pick cleared a procedural hurdle Thursday in the Senate and is on track for confirmation as soon as next week. The Senate also confirmed Zahid Quraishi as the nation’s first Muslim federal judge.”