Another interesting decision, in part because of how the vote went down. I tend to agree with the dissent. The law has been around for 33 years and used tens of thousands of times. Hard to come out now and say it is vague. In addition, it places the Justices in an interesting position. The liberal Justices have all favored enhanced gun control. When given the opportunity to weigh in on punishment for gun violence, however, they go the opposite direction.
Interesting times indeed.
Background: Maurice Davis and Andre Glover were convicted of a string of gas station robberies in June 2014. During the robberies, they brandished a short-barrel shotgun. Because of this, in addition to being charges with robbery, they were charged with a “crime of violence,” which is defined as a felony “that by its nature, involved a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense.” This federal law has been in existence for the past 33 years and used to increase the penalty for crimes committed using a firearm.
Argument: Davis and Glover argued the crime of violence was unconstitutionally vague. Basically, the law does not specifically state that use of a firearm in the commission of these crimes will result in an enhanced punishment. A defendant cannot be punished for a crime that he/she did not know was being committed because the law is vague on the conduct.
Decision: Gorsuch joined Kagen, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Sotomayor in rendering the decision that the law was unconstitutionally vague.
Summary of the Holding: “In our constitutional order, a vague law is no law at all. Only the people’s elected representatives in Congress have the power to write new federal criminal laws. And when Congress exercises that power, it has to write statutes that give ordinary people fair warning about what the law demands of them. Vague laws transgress both of those constitutional requirements. They hand off the legislature’s responsibility for defining criminal behavior to unelected prosecutors and judges, and they leave people with no sure way to know what consequences will attach to their conduct. When Congress passes a vague law, the role of courts under our Constitution is not to fashion a new, clearer law to take its place, but to treat the law as a nullity and invite Congress to try again.”
Summary of the Dissent: “Over the last 33 years, tens of thousands of §924(c) cases have been prosecuted in the federal courts. Meanwhile, violent crime with firearms has decreased significantly. Over the last 25 years, the annual rate of murders with firearms has dropped by about 50 percent, and the annual rate of nonfatal violent crimes (robberies, aggravated assaults, and sex crimes) with firearms has decreased by about 75 percent. Violent crime in general (committed with or without a firearm) has also declined. During that same time period, both the annual rate of overall violent crime and the annual rate of murders have dropped by almost 50 percent. Although the level of violent crime in America is still very high, especially in certain cities, Americans under the age of 40 probably cannot fully appreciate how much safer most American cities and towns are now than they were in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Many factors have contributed to the decline of violent crime in America. But one cannot dismiss the effects of state and federal laws that impose steep punishments on those who commit violent crimes with firearms. Yet today, after 33 years and tens of thousands of federal prosecutions, the Court suddenly finds a key provision of §924(c) to be unconstitutional because it is supposedly too vague. That is a surprising conclusion for the Court to reach about a federal law that has been applied so often for so long with so little problem. The Court’s decision today will make it harder to prosecute violent gun crimes in the future. The Court’s decision also will likely mean that thousands of inmates who committed violent gun crimes will be released far earlier than Congress specified when enacting §924(c). The inmates who will be released early are not nonviolent offenders. They are not drug offenders. They are offenders who committed violent crimes with firearms, often brutally violent crimes.”
Link to decision: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/18-431_7758.pdf
