This morning in United States v. Stitt, No. 17-765, the U.S. Supreme Court returned once again to the perennial problem of sentencing repeating criminals based on prior convictions from other jurisdictions where crimes are defined differently.
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.
Justice Breyer wrote the unanimous opinion for the Court.
Update: Jordan Rubin has this story on the case for Bloomberg Law.
Under the "categorical approach," all burglary convictions in a particular state will not be considered as such for sentencing if the state defines burglary too broadly, such as including breaking into a vehicle not used for habitation:
In Taylor, for example, we referred to a Missouri breaking and entering statute that among other things criminalized breaking and entering "any boat or vessel, or railroad car." Ibid. (citing Mo. Rev. Stat. §560.070 (1969); emphasis added). We did say that that particular provision was beyond the scope of the federal Act. But the statute used the word "any"; it referred to ordinary boats and vessels often at sea (and railroad cars often filled with cargo, not people), nowhere restricting its coverage, as here, to vehicles or structures customarily used or adapted for overnight accommodation. The statutes before us, by using these latter words, more clearly focus upon circumstances where burglary is likely to present a serious risk of violence.
I believe the categorical approach is wrong. Two criminals who, in fact, committed exactly the same prior offense, exactly fitting the traditional definition of burglary, can get vastly different sentences in federal court based on the irrelevant fact that one state defined the crime more broadly. But until Congress fixes it (not likely to be any time soon), states should break off their vehicular burglary crimes into separate sections of the code.
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