Sentencing — ACCA

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Sentencing — ACCA

The residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act is not unconstitutionally vague.

“Jones points out that the Supreme Court has never received briefing on the vagueness issue. True, but the Court’s statements in James and Sykes are direct, and because Justice Scalia so thoroughly developed the argument, we are reluctant to treat the Court’s responsive statements as mere dicta. Indeed, they are not dicta in the traditional sense. The question presented in James and Sykes required the Court to decide both the kind and degree of risk necessary for a conviction to fall within the scope of the residual clause. A possible answer in both cases was that the residual clause is an irreparable drafting failure and too vague to be enforced. See id. at 2284 (Scalia, J., dissenting); James, 550 U.S. at 230 (Scalia, J., dissenting). For us to say that the residual clause is unconstitutionally vague—essentially, that it lacks a coherent, ascertainable standard—would be to say that the Supreme Court failed to ascertain and apply a standard in James, Begay, Chambers, and Sykes. Justice Scalia may be right, but attributing failure to the Supreme Court is not within our authority. Jones must seek relief from the high court.”

Affirmed.

11-3719 U.S. v. Jones

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois, Mills, J., Sykes, J.