Federal law mandates a 15-year minimum sentence for illegal firearms possession when the defendant has three prior convictions for drugs or violent felonies.
The Supreme Court ruled 6–3 on May 23 in favor of the federal government in a case about how sentences under a federal three-strikes gun law should be imposed on defendants previously convicted of violent felonies or major drug offenses.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion in Brown v. United States, which was consolidated with Jackson v. United States. The vote did not break down along traditional conservative versus liberal ideological lines, with one liberal justice joining the majority and a conservative justice siding with dissenters.
Federal law prohibits convicted felons from possessing firearms.
The often-litigated Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) was enacted in 1984 in response to concerns that a small number of repeat offenders were committing a disproportionate number of crimes.
The law requires that a 15-year minimum sentence be imposed on people found guilty of illegally possessing a firearm who have three or more prior convictions for “a serious drug offense” or violent felonies such as burglary “committed on occasions different from one another.”
The prior convictions are called predicate offenses.
A violent felony is defined by the statute as one that necessarily involves “the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another.”
The issue was whether sentencing under the ACCA should take into account the laws in effect when defendants committed the prior offenses or the laws in effect at the time that the defendants used a gun in a new offense qualifying under the statute.
Effect of the Ruling
For some defendants, their drug convictions and firearms convictions are separated by many years.
The new ruling is likely to hurt some defendants while helping others. This is because the drug laws that trigger enhancement under the ACCA are frequently amended, and in the process, those laws can become either more or less advantageous to defendants.
Petitioner Justin Rashaad Brown asked the court to review his case because the federal government had already decriminalized hemp by the time he was convicted on a gun charge.
Petitioner Eugene Jackson also asked for the court to look at his case. He disputes whether one of his prior convictions for cocaine possession constitutes a serious drug offense.
In the new ruling, the Supreme Court stated that when considering a sentence, courts need to take into consideration the law that was in place at the time of the original conviction.
Conservative members of the court—Chief Justice John Roberts, along with Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—voted with the majority, but conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch joined parts of the dissenting opinion written by liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Elena Kagan joined the dissent.
At the same time, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the majority opinion.
The majority opinion recounts that the ACCA requires a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence be given to defendants who are convicted for the illegal possession of a firearm and who have a criminal history that is considered to demonstrate a propensity for violence.
Defendants are subject to the enhanced penalty if they have “three previous convictions” for “a serious drug offense.” For a state crime to be deemed a “serious drug offense,” it must carry a maximum sentence of at least 10 years’ imprisonment and has to involve “a controlled substance,” as defined by the Controlled Substances Act. That statute includes five schedules listing controlled substances, which are updated each year by the U.S. attorney general.
“The two cases now before us present the question whether a state crime constitutes a ’serious drug offense’ if it involved a drug that was on the federal schedules when the defendant possessed or trafficked in it but was later removed,” Justice Alito wrote.
“We hold that such an offense qualifies.
“Precedent and statutory context show that the Government’s interpretation is correct.”
The government’s interpretation is also consistent with the objectives of the ACCA. When Congress approved the law, its general approach was to single out “offenses of a certain level of seriousness that involve violence or an inherent risk thereof, and that are likely to be committed by career offenders.”
Because defendants who have repeatedly committed ACCA predicate offenses are “especially likely to inflict grave harm when in possession of a firearm,” the statute imposes a tougher punishment when they do so.
The risk that an offender will stop offending “does not cease to exist” if the law under which the person was convicted is later amended or eliminated, the majority argued. For example, the character of someone who illegally distributed alcohol during Prohibition did not necessarily change when Prohibition was repealed in 1933.
“[Repeal] did not by any means ensure that these bootleggers would take up legitimate jobs. Instead, after the end of Prohibition, many of them simply shifted to other illegal enterprises,” Justice Alito wrote.
The Supreme Court held that a state drug conviction counts as an ACCA predicate if it involved a drug that appeared on the federal schedules at the time of that conviction. The high court affirmed the judgments of the lower courts.
Dissent
In her dissenting opinion, Justice Jackson wrote that the ACCA makes it clear that “courts should apply the drug schedules in effect at the time of the federal firearms offense that triggers ACCA’s potential application.”
“Nothing else—not precedent, context, or purpose—requires a different result,” she said.
The new ruling came after the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in an ACCA case in March 2022.
In Wooden v. United States, the court held that a burglar’s 10 prior convictions arising from a single criminal episode didn’t count as multiple convictions under the ACCA.
The justices are currently deliberating another ACCA case known as Erlinger v. United States, which they heard on March 27.
The Supreme Court is considering whether a judge or a jury gets to decide whether criminal defendants’ prior convictions justify enhanced sentencing under the statute.
The court is expected to decide whether the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires juries to go through fact-based inquiries to figure out whether a defendant has committed multiple prior offenses on separate occasions and therefore qualifies for an enhanced sentence under the ACCA.
A ruling is expected by the end of June.