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AN E-BULLETIN
LEGAL INFORMATION INSTITUTE -- CORNELL LAW SCHOOL
lii.law.cornell.edu
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The following information has just arrived via the LII's
direct Project HERMES feed from the Supreme Court. A list of
links for today's material is followed by the syllabus for any
case which had one.
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DEATH PENALTY, LETHAL INJECTION, CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT,
EIGHTH AMENDMENT
BAZE v. REES (07-5439 Syllabus)
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-5439.ZS.html
SENTENCING, CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES ACT, CONFORMING AMENDMENTS,
FELONY DRUG OFFENSE, ENHANCED MANDATORY MINIMIUM SENTENCE,
AMBIGUITY, CRIMINAL STATUTE, LENITY
BURGESS v. UNITED STATES (6-11429 Syllabus)
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/6-11429.ZS.html
SENTENCING, ARMED CAREER CRIMINAL ACT, FELON, RECIDIVIST, DWI,
FIREARM, DRIVING WHILE INTOXICATED, DRUNK DRIVING, GUN
BEGAY v. UNITED STATES (6-11543 Syllabus)
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/6-11543.ZS.html
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BEGAY v. UNITED STATES (No. 06-11543)
Web-accessible at:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/6-11543.ZS.html
Argued: January 15, 2008 -- Decided: April 16, 2008
Opinion author: Breyer
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The Armed Career Criminal Act (Act) imposes a special mandatory
15-year prison term upon a felon who unlawfully possesses
a firearm and who has three or more prior convictions for
committing certain drug crimes or "a violent felony." 18
U. S. C. sec.924(e)(1). The Act defines "violent felony"
as, inter alia, a crime punishable by more than one year's
imprisonment that "is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves
use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents
a serious potential risk of physical injury to another."
sec.924(e)(2)(B)(ii) (hereinafter clause (ii)). After petitioner
Begay pleaded guilty to felony possession of a firearm,
his presentence report revealed he had 12 New Mexico convictions
for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI), which
state law makes a felony (punishable by a prison term of
more than one year) the fourth (or subsequent) time an
individual commits it. Based on these convictions, the
sentencing judge concluded that Begay had three or more
"violent felony" convictions and, therefore, sentenced
him to an enhanced 15-year sentence. The Tenth Circuit
rejected Begay's claim that DUI is not a "violent felony"
under the Act.
Held: New Mexico's felony DUI crime falls outside the scope
of the Act's clause (ii) "violent felony" definition. Pp.
3-10.
(a) Whether a crime is a violent felony is determined by
how the law defines it and not how an individual offender
might have committed it on a particular occasion. Pp. 3-4.
(b) Even assuming that DUI involves conduct that "presents
a serious potential risk of physical injury to another"
under clause (ii), the crime falls outside the clause's
scope because it is simply too unlike clause (ii)'s example
crimes to indicate that Congress intended that provision
to cover it. Pp. 4-10.
(i) Clause (ii)'s listed examples--burglary, arson, extortion,
and crimes involving the use of explosives--should be read
as limiting the crimes the clause covers to those that
are roughly similar, in kind as well as in degree of risk
posed, to the examples themselves. Their presence in the
statute indicates that Congress meant for the statute to
cover only similar crimes, rather than every crime that
"presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to
another," sec.924(e)(2)(B)(ii). If Congress meant the statute
to be all encompassing, it would not have needed to include
the examples at all. Moreover, if clause (ii) were meant
to include all risky crimes, Congress likely would not
have included clause (i), which includes crimes that have
"as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use
of physical force against the person of another." And had
Congress included the examples solely for quantitative
purposes, demonstrating no more than the degree of risk
of physical injury sufficient to bring a crime within the
statute's scope, it would likely have chosen examples that
better illustrated the degree of risk it had in mind rather
than these that are far from clear in respect to the degree
of risk each poses. The Government's argument that the
word "otherwise" just after the examples is sufficient
to demonstrate that they do not limit the clause's scope
is rejected because "otherwise" can refer to a crime that
is, e.g., similar to the examples in respect to the degree
of risk it produces, but different in respect to the way
or manner in which it produces that risk. Pp. 4-7.
(ii) DUI differs from the example crimes in at least one
important respect: The examples typically involve purposeful,
violent, and aggressive conduct, whereas DUI statutes typically
do not. When viewed in terms of the Act's purposes, this
distinction matters considerably. The Act looks to past
crimes to determine which offenders create a special danger
by possessing a gun. In this respect, a history of crimes
involving purposeful, violent, and aggressive conduct,
which shows an increased likelihood that the offender is
the kind of person who might deliberately point a gun and
pull the trigger, is different from a history of DUI, which
does not involve the deliberate kind of behavior associated
with violent criminal use of firearms. Pp. 7-10.
470 F. 3d 964, reversed and remanded.
Breyer, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
Roberts, C. J., and Stevens, Kennedy, and Ginsburg, JJ.,
joined. Scalia, J., filed an opinion concurring in the
judgment. Alito, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which
Souter and Thomas, JJ., joined.
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