Brief filed: 07/19/2023
Documents
Brown v. United States; Jackson v. United States
United States Supreme Court; Case No. 22-6389 & 22-6640
Argument(s)
These cases involve an important and recurring question about the interplay between provisions of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e), and the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), 21 U.S.C. §§ 802, 811-12. Specifically, the question is whether ACCA’s “serious drug offense” definition in-corporates the CSA’s federal drug schedules in effect at the time of the federal firearm offense or the sen-tencing for that federal firearm offense—or instead in-corporates, as the government contends, federal drug schedules that were in effect at the time of the prior state drug offense. As petitioners in both cases persuasively explain, every available tool of statutory construction points against the government’s proposed rule and in favor of courts using the federal drug schedules in place at the time of the federal firearm offense or the federal firearm sentence.
Author(s)
David Oscar Markus, NACDL, Miami, FL; Daniel E. Jones, Mayer Brown LLP, Washington, DC
