The question in the title of this post is prompted by the one notable criminal justice element of the Supreme Court's order list this morning. At the very end of a relatively short order list, Justice Alito (joined by Justice Thomas) dissents from the Court's decision to GVR a case back to the Eleventh Circuit (which is what the US Solicitor General urged the Court to do). Here is the full dissent:
The Court grants, vacates, and remands in this case, apparently because it harbors doubt that petitioner’s 1987 conviction under Florida law for battery on a law enforcement officer qualifies as a “violent felony” as defined by the Armed Career Criminal Act’s elements clause, which covers a felony offense that “has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another.” 18 U. S. C. §924(e)(2)(B)(i). I share no such doubt: As the case comes to us, it is undisputed that petitioner was convicted of battery on a law enforcement officer after he “‘struck [an] officer in the face using a closed fist.’” App. to Pet. for Cert. A–1, p. 11. See Fla. Stat. §784.03(1)(a) (2018) (a person commits battery when he “[a]ctually and intentionally touches or strikes another person against the will of the other,” among other things). Because the record makes “perfectly clear” that petitioner “was convicted of battery on a law enforcement officer by striking, which involves the use of physical force against the person of another,” App. to Pet. for Cert. A–1, at 11, I would count the conviction as a “violent felony” under the elements clause and would therefore deny the petition. Mathis v. United States, 579 U. S. ___, ___ (2016) (ALITO, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 6).
Last year in this post, I expressed my ACCA exhaustion by asking "At just what level of Dante's Inferno does modern ACCA jurisprudence reside?". And if I was much more clever and had endless time, I might this year try to come up with some account of ACCA jurisprudence that uses an elaborate array of Game of Thrones references (e.g., the now-long-dead residual clause could be cast as evil Joffrey and other clauses could be other Lannisters and other characters could be key SCOTUS rulings assailing or defending clauses).
I make the GoT reference in part because I know I can find on the Internet somewhere a detailed accounting of characters killed in that long-running fictional series. In turn, I wonder if I can find on the Internet somewhere any accounting of cases sent back by SCOTUS in the long-running (and likely never-ending) drama that is modern ACCA jurisprudence.
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