Harmful Error

The United States Supreme Court issued its first opinion of the term this morning. In Logan v. United States, a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Ginsburg, the Court held that a federal armed career criminal law sentencing enhancement provisions applies to an individual who did not ever lost his civil rights. Scotusblog summarizes the opinion as follows:

"The Logan case involved the interpretation of the phrase "civil rights restored" in the federal Armed Career Criminal Act. Those who have been convicted previously of felonies and are then convicted of possessing guns are subject to a maximum sentence of ten years, but that maximum is increased to life for those who have had three prior convictions for violent felonies -- including violent misdemeanors. But Congress exempted from that enhancement feature those who have had their civil rights restored. James D. Logan of Janesville, Wis., was convicted of being a felon posseesing a gun and was sentenced to 15 years in prison, based upon three prior convictions for misdemeanor battery -- a crime that causes no loss of civil rights. Logan argued that convictions that carry no loss of civil rights should be treated the same as those for which rights were lost then later restored. The Court rejected that claim. 'Congress did not include offenders who retained civil righs at all times in its dispensation for offenders whose civil rigths have been restored,' Justice Ginsburg said. 'We are not equipped to say what statutory alteration, if any, Congress would have made had its attention trained on offenders who retained civil rights.' And, she added, the Court cannot 'recast' the law in a way that Congress did not."