SHULAR v. UNITED STATES
No. 18-6662
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
February 26, 2020
589 U. S. ____ (2020)
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
The Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) mandates a 15-year minimum sentence for a defendant convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm who has at least three convictions for “serious drug offense[s].”
To determine whether an offender‘s prior convictions qualify for ACCA enhancement, this Court has used a “categorical approach,” looking “only to the statutory definitions of the prior offenses.” Taylor v. United States, 495 U. S. 575, 600. Under some statutes, a court employing a categorical approach must come up with a “generic” version of a crime—that is, the elements of the offense as commonly understood. The court then determines whether the elements of the offense of conviction match those of the generic crime. Other statutes, which ask the court to determine whether the conviction meets some other criterion, require no such generic-offense analysis.
Shular pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm and received a 15-year sentence, the mandatory minimum under ACCA. In imposing this sentence, the District Court held that Shular‘s six prior cocaine-related convictions under Florida law qualified as “serious drug offense[s]” triggering ACCA enhancement. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed, concluding that
Held: Section
(b) The statutory text and context show that
(c) Shular argues that Congress meant to capture the drug offenses generally existing in state laws at the time of
(d) Rejecting a generic-offense approach, Shular contends, would subject defendants to ACCA enhancement based on outlier state laws. He emphasizes that the Florida drug offenses of which he was convicted do not require, as an element, knowledge of the illicit nature of the controlled substance. But Shular overstates the extent to which Florida law is idiosyncratic, for if a defendant asserts that he was unaware of the substance‘s illicit nature, the jury must find knowledge beyond a reasonable doubt. In any event, Shular‘s interpretation is scarcely the only one that promotes consistency. Congress intended consistent application of ACCA to all offenders who engaged—according to the elements of their prior convictions—in certain conduct. Pp. 9-10.
(e) The rule of lenity has no application here, for after consulting traditional canons of interpretation there remains no ambiguity for the
736 Fed. Appx. 876, affirmed.
GINSBURG, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. KAVANAUGH, J., filed a concurring opinion.
EDDIE LEE SHULAR, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES
No. 18-6662
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
February 26, 2020
589 U. S. ____ (2020)
JUSTICE GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA),
While the parties agree that a court should look to the state offense‘s elements, they disagree over what the court should measure those elements against. In the Government‘s view, the court should ask whether those elements involve the conduct identified in
Under the approach he advances, Shular argues, his sentence is not subject to ACCA enhancement. The generic offenses named in
The question presented: Does
I
Ordinarily, a defendant convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of
To determine whether an offender‘s prior convictions qualify for ACCA enhancement, we have used a “categorical approach,” under which we look “only to the statutory definitions of the prior offenses.” Taylor v. United States, 495 U. S. 575, 600 (1990). Under this approach, we consider neither “the particular facts underlying the prior convictions” nor “the label a State assigns to [the] crime[s].” Mathis v. United States, 579 U. S. ___, ___ (2016) (slip op., at 8) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted).
Under some statutes, using a categorical approach requires the court to come up with a “generic” version of a crime—that is, the elements of “the offense as commonly understood,” id., at ___ (slip op., at 1).1 We have required that step when the statute refers generally to an offense without specifying its elements. In that situation, the court must define the offense so that it can compare elements, not labels. For example, in Taylor, confronted with ACCA‘s unadorned reference to “burglary,” we identified the elements of “generic burglary” based on the “sense in which the term is now used in the criminal codes of most States.” 495 U. S., at 598-599;
In contrast, other statutes calling for a categorical approach ask the court to determine not whether the prior conviction was for a certain offense, but whether the conviction meets some other criterion. For example, in Kawashima v. Holder, 565 U. S. 478 (2012), we applied a categorical approach to a statute assigning immigration consequences to prior convictions for “an offense that . . . involves fraud or deceit” with a loss exceeding $10,000.
This case invites us to decide which of the two categorical methodologies just described applies in determining whether a state offense is a “serious drug offense” under ACCA. ACCA defines that term to include:
“an offense under State law, involving manufacturing, distributing, or possessing with intent to manufacture or distribute, a controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (
21 U. S. C. [§]802 )), for which a maximum term of imprisonment of ten years or more is prescribed by law.”18 U. S. C. §924(e)(2)(A)(ii) .
II
Shular pleaded guilty in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida to possessing a firearm after having been convicted of a felony, in violation of
In imposing that enhanced sentence, the District Court took account of Shular‘s prior convictions under Florida law. In 2012, Shular pleaded guilty to five counts of selling cocaine and one count of possessing cocaine with intent to sell, all in violation of
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the sentence. 736 Fed. Appx. 876 (2018). It relied on Circuit precedent holding that a court applying
Courts of Appeals have divided on whether
III
A
The parties here agree that
They differ, however, on what comparison
This methodological dispute is occasioned by an interpretive disagreement over
B
The Government‘s reading, we are convinced, correctly interprets the statutory text and context. Two features of
First, the terms in
Contrast
Second, by speaking of activities a state-law drug offense “involv[es],”
To refer to offenses as Shular urges, it would have been far more natural for the drafter to follow the enumerated-offense clause in using “is,” not “involving.” See
C
Shular principally urges that at the time of
Shular points out that the word “involving” can accommodate a generic-offense approach. Cf. Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, Inc., 537 U. S. 393, 409 (2003) (“act or threat involving . . . extortion,”
Endeavoring to explain why Congress might have chosen “involving” over “is” in
Shular asserts that to describe conduct rather than offenses, Congress would have used the language of the elements clause of the “violent felony” definition, which captures a crime that “has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another.”
Nor does the other clause of the “serious drug offense” definition shed light on the question before us. Section
D
Shular expresses concern that rejecting a generic-offense approach would yield an anomalous result. Unlike other drug laws, Shular contends, the Florida law under which he was previously convicted does not require that the defendant know the substance is illicit. Unless
As an initial matter, Shular overstates Florida‘s disregard for mens rea. Charged under
In any event, both parties’ interpretations of
E
Shular urges us to apply the rule of lenity in determining whether
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is
Affirmed.
EDDIE LEE SHULAR, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES
No. 18-6662
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
February 26, 2020
589 U. S. ____ (2020)
I join the Court‘s opinion in full. In Part III-E of the opinion, the Court rejects Shular‘s argument for applying the rule of lenity. I write separately to elaborate on why the rule of lenity does not apply here.
This Court‘s longstanding precedents establish that the rule of lenity applies when two conditions are met.
First, as the Court today says and as the Court has repeatedly held, a court may invoke the rule of lenity only “‘after consulting traditional canons of statutory construction.‘” Ante, at 10 (quoting United States v. Shabani, 513 U. S. 10, 17 (1994)).1 In other words, a court must first employ all of the traditional tools of statutory interpretation,
Second, this Court has repeatedly explained that the rule of lenity applies only in cases of “‘grievous‘” ambiguity—where the court, even after applying all of the traditional tools of statutory interpretation, ” ‘can make no more than a guess as to what Congress intended.‘” Ocasio, 578 U. S., at ___, n. 8 (slip op., at 13, n. 8) (quoting Muscarello, 524 U. S., at 138-139). The Court has stated that the “simple existence of some statutory ambiguity” is “not sufficient to warrant application of that rule, for most statutes are ambiguous to some degree.” Id., at 138. To be sure, as Justice Scalia rightly noted, the term “‘grievous ambiguity‘” provides “‘little more than atmospherics, since it leaves open the crucial question—almost invariably present—of how much ambiguousness constitutes an ambiguity.‘” Reading Law, at 299 (quoting United States v. Hansen, 772 F. 2d 940, 948 (CADC 1985) (Scalia, J., for the court)); see also Kavanaugh, Fixing Statutory Interpretation, 129 Harv.
To sum up: Under this Court‘s longstanding precedents, the rule of lenity applies when a court employs all of the traditional tools of statutory interpretation and, after doing so, concludes that the statute still remains grievously ambiguous, meaning that the court can make no more than a guess as to what the statute means.
Because the Court correctly concludes that the rule of lenity does not apply in this case, I join the Court‘s opinion in full.