Supreme Court Says It Won’t ‘Recast’ Career Criminal Statute
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against a defendant challenging a sentencing enhancement for being an armed career criminal, SCOTUSblog reports.
The defendant, James Logan, who was convicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm, was given a 15-year sentence under the enhancement provision because he had three prior misdemeanor battery convictions. He did not lose his civil rights for the prior convictions.
Logan had argued it was inequitable to apply the sentencing enhancement to him since the law exempted those whose civil rights had been restored, the William Mitchell College of Law said in a news release about a 2004 grad who argued the case.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the opinion (PDF posted by SCOTUSblog) for the court, which said the justices could not “recast [the statute] in Congress’ stead.”
“Congress might have broadened the … exemption provision to cover convictions attended by no loss of civil rights,” Ginsburg wrote. “The national lawmakers, however, did not do so.”
