United States v. Stitt
U.S. Supreme Court · decided December 10, 2018 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- December 10, 2018
- Term
- October Term 2018
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Breyer
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court. The Armed Career Criminal Act requires a federal sentencing judge to impose upon certain persons convicted of unlawfully possessing a firearm a 15-year minimum prison term. The judge is to impose that special sentence if the offender also has three prior convictions for certain violent or drug-related crimes. 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). Those prior convictions include convictions for "burglary." § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii). And the question here is whether the statutory term "burglary" includes burglary of a structure or vehicle that has been adapted or is customarily used for overnight accommodation. We hold that it does. I The consolidated cases before us involve two defendants, each of whom was convicted in a federal court of unlawfully possessing a firearm in violation of § 922(g)(1). The maximum punishment for this offense is typically 10 years in prison. § 924(a)(2). Each offender, however, had prior state burglary convictions sufficient, at least potentially, to require the sentencing judge to impose a mandatory 15-year minimum prison term under the Armed Career Criminal Act. That Act, as we have just said, requires an enhanced sentence for offenders who have at least three previous convictions for certain "violent" or drug-related felonies. § 924(e)(1). Those prior felonies include "any crime" that is "punishable by imprisonment for a…
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