More than 1,400 recidivist offenders have successfully petitioned for early release from prison in the three years since the Supreme Court gutted the Armed Career Criminal Act, a federal statute aimed at locking up repeat violent offenders.
Since the Court’s 2015 ruling in Johnson v. United States, lower federal courts have struggled to craft a consistent framework for deciding whether various categories of seemingly violent offenses can still be counted towards enhanced penalties.
The results have been inconsistent and absurd. Courts across the country have held that sexual abuse by forcible compulsion, armed robbery, resisting arrest, assault and battery on a police officer, felony domestic assault, terroristic threatening, interfering with a flight crew, sex trafficking of a minor, conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering, and using a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence do not constitute violent crimes.
“And this, finally, is what we have come to: plotting to murder one’s fellow human beings is not a crime of violence,” lamented then-Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit William B. Traxler, Jr., in a recent case.
As a result of the Court’s ruling, federal prosecutors are no longer able to obtain meaningful sentences for repeat violent offenders. The problem is compounded by the fact that, in the three years since Johnson was decided, more than 1,400 recidivist offenders have successfully petitioned for early release from prison.
Of those who have been out of prison at least two years, a majority have already reoffended. And as Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently noted, of the 1,400 inmates released in the last three years, 600 have already been re-arrested on average, at least three times.
The Armed Career Criminal Act, signed into law by President Reagan in 1984, requires a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years for felons convicted of unlawfully possessing a firearm if they had three or more prior convictions for a “serious drug offense” or a “violent felony.”
The statute was a resounding success in reducing violent crime. Between 1991 and 2014, the murder and aggravated-assault rates decreased by half, robberies decreased by two-thirds, and rapes decreased by more than a third.
Related Federal Cases
- D.C. Robber Nabbed: Six Counts, 25 Years Loom · Virginia
- Capitol Rioters Face Decades Behind Bars · Washington
- DC Felon Gets 2 Years for Stolen Glock · Virginia
- Kanawha Co. Felon Pleads Guilty to Gun Charges: .40-Caliber Pistol Seized, Faces Decade in the Clink · Virginia
- D.C. Felon’s Pot Stop Lands Him Two Years for Stolen Glock · Virginia
Key Facts
- State: Virginia
- Category: Violent Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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