Justices limit use of federal enhanced sentencing law (Jan. 13, 2009)
A failure to report to prison that leads to a conviction for escape cannot be the basis for enhanced sentencing under the Armed Career Criminal Act, the Supreme Court held today.
Deondery Chambers pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. In May 2006, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois sentenced him to 188 months in prison under the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. 924(e), which holds that a felony is violent if it “involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.”
On Jan. 9, 2007, a three-judge panel on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s judgment with reservations.
“We shall adhere to the precedents for now. But it is an embarrassment to the law when judges base decisions of consequence on conjectures, in this case a conjecture as to the possible danger of physical injury posed by criminals who fail to show up to begin serving their sentences,” Judge Richard Posner wrote.
In asking the Supreme Court to take the case, Chambers and his attorneys pointed to the “substantial gap in the interpretation and application of the ACCA.”
“Failure-to-report escapes occur frequently, and as the body of appellate decisions rulings on whether such escapes are violent crimes indicates, they are often relied upon to support an enhanced sentenced for armed career offenders.”
On Jan. 13, the Supreme Court tossed out the mandatory 15-year prison term given to Chambers. Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote the opinion for the court.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito – joined by Justice Clarence Thomas – urged Congress to step in and create a list of specific crimes that would be applicable under the law.
“At this point, the only tenable, long-term solution is for Congress to formulate a specific list of expressly defined crimes that are deemed to be worthy of ACCA’s sentencing enhancement,” he wrote. “That is the approach that Congress took in 1984, when it applied ACCA to two enumerated and expressly defined felonies.”
Question presented:
Whether, under enhanced sentencing guidelines, the failure to report to prison is the equivalent of escape.