Our colleague Stuart Gerson of Epstein Becker Green has a new post on SCOTUS Today that will be of interest to our readers: "The Justices Show Again That They Are Not Politicians in Robes."
The following is an excerpt:
A short note about the Supreme Court’s decision today in Borden v. United States, in which it considered whether a felon-in-possession gun charge qualified as a “violent felony” under the Armed Career Criminal Act (“Act”), 18 U. S. C. §924, which provides enhanced penalties for criminals convicted of certain firearms offenses who have at least “three previous convictions . . . for a violent felony or a serious drug offense.” The case centered around the Act’s definition of a “violent felony” as a “crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” that either “has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another” (the elements clause) or “involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.” The Court concluded that a crime of mere recklessness did not contain the mens rea that would fall within the statute’s “elements clause.” This holding is certainly of interest to accused career felons whose latest misconduct is reckless but not violent, and to those who represent them. But that is not why I write about it.
Click here to read the full post and more on SCOTUS Today.
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