The Supreme Court this morning handed down a 5-3 ruling in Pereida v, Wilkenson, No. 19-438 (S. Ct. Mar. 4, 2021) (available here), in which the majority holds that, under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), a person subject to removal seeking discretionary relief must prove a prior conviction is not a “disqualifying criminal offense.” Federal sentencing fans may already sense where this is going because so much of federal sentencing law, particularly the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), is concerned a lot about whether a prior conviction qualifies a defendant for certain sentencing enhancements. In his opinion for the majority, Justice Gorsuch talks a good deal about these matters, and here are a few passages that caught my eye:
We have described the modified categorical approach as requiring courts to “review . . . record materials” to determine which of the offenses in a divisible statute the defendant was convicted of committing. Mathis, 579 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 16). We have acknowledged that this process calls on courts to consider “extra-statutory materials” to “discover” the defendant’s crime of conviction. Descamps v. United States, 570 U.S. 254, 263 (2013). We have observed that these “materials will not in every case speak plainly,” and that any lingering ambiguity about them can mean the government will fail to carry its burden of proof in a criminal case. Mathis, 579 U.S.,...
