SUPREME COURT NOTEBOOK

 


Court rejects GOP redistricting plans in NC, Pennsylvania

By Mark Sherman
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a victory for Democrats, the Supreme Court has turned away efforts from Republicans in North Carolina and Pennsylvania to block state court-ordered congressional districting plans.

In separate orders late Monday, the justices are allowing maps selected by each state's Supreme Court to be in effect for the 2022 elections. Those maps are more favorable to Democrats than the ones drawn by the states' legislatures.

In North Carolina, the map most likely will give Democrats an additional House seat in 2023.

The Pennsylvania map also probably will lead to the election of more Democrats, the Republicans say, as the two parties battle for control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the midterm elections in November.

The justices provided no explanation for their actions, as is common in emergency applications on what is known as the "shadow docket."

While the high court did not stop the state court-ordered plans from being used in this year's elections, four conservative justices indicated they want it to confront the issue that could dramatically limit the power of state courts over federal elections in the future. The Republicans argued that state courts lack the authority to second-guess legislatures' decisions about the conduct of elections for Congress and the presidency.

"We will have to resolve this question sooner or later, and the sooner we do so, the better. This case presented a good opportunity to consider the issue, but unfortunately the court has again found the occasion inopportune," Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a dissent from the Supreme Court's order, joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh made a similar point, but said he didn't want to interfere in this year's electoral process, which already is underway. The filing deadline in North Carolina was Friday.

The state courts were involved because of partisan wrangling and lawsuits over congressional redistricting in both states, where the legislatures are controlled by Republicans, the governors are Democrats and the state Supreme Courts have Democratic majorities.

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed the plan the Republican-controlled Legislature approved, saying it was the result of a "partisan political process."

The state, with a delegation of nine Democrats and nine Republicans, is losing a seat in the House following the 2020 Census.

Republicans said the map they came up with would elect nine Democrats and eight Republicans. State courts eventually stepped in and approved a map that probably will elect 10 Democrats, the GOP argued.

North Carolina is picking up a seat in the House because of population gains. Republican majorities in the Legislature produced an initial plan most likely to result in 10 seats for Republicans and four for Democrats. The governor does not have veto power over redistricting plans in North Carolina.

After Democrats sued, the state's high court selected a map that likely will elect at least six Democrats.

Lawsuits are continuing in both states, but the Supreme Court signaled in Monday's orders that this year's elections for Congress in North Carolina and Pennsylvania would take place under the maps approved by the states' top courts.


Justices narrow reach of law targeting career criminals

By Jessica Gresko
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday narrowed the reach of a federal law that strengthens penalties for career criminals found to illegally have a gun.

The high court was ruling in the case of a man a lower court classified as a career criminal after counting the man's burglary of 10 different public storage units on a single evening as 10 separate offenses. The high court said unanimously Monday that was an error.

The man's 10 burglary convictions should have been treated as one event rather than separate crimes when considering whether he qualified for a stiffened sentence under the federal Armed Career Criminal Act, the justices concluded.

Without the stronger sentence, the man's recommended sentence would have been approximately two years, but he was instead sentenced to nearly 16.

"Convictions arising from a single criminal episode ... can count only once under ACCA," Justice Elena Kagan wrote.

The decision could result in reduced sentences for other people subject to stronger sentences under the law. According to a U.S. Sentencing Commission report, however, people classified as armed career criminals have recently made up less than one percent of those sentenced every year for federal offenses.

The Armed Career Criminal Act requires a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence for anyone found to have a gun after three or more previous convictions for violent felonies or serious drug offenses. The law says that each of the offenses must have been "committed on occasions different from one another."

Kagan wrote that a single "occasion" can include distinct activities, citing the example of multiple events occurring on a couple's wedding day.

"The occasion of a wedding, for example, often includes a ceremony, cocktail hour, dinner, and dancing. Those doings are proximate in time and place, and have a shared theme (celebrating the happy couple); their connections are, indeed, what makes them part of a single event. But they do not occur at the same moment," she said. "The newlyweds would surely take offense if a guest organized a conga line in the middle of their vows. That is because an occasion may ... encompass a number of non-simultaneous activities."

The case before the justices involved William Dale Wooden. Wooden had a lengthy criminal history and was convicted in 2018 in Tennessee of being a felon in possession of a firearm. A judge concluded he should qualify for the Armed Career Criminal Act's sentencing "enhancement." That conclusion was based on a 2005 burglary conviction and the fact that he had pleaded guilty in 1997 to 10 counts of burglary for joining in the burglary of 10 units at a ministorage facility in Dalton, Georgia.

Wooden argued the burglaries should count as one conviction, but lower courts disagreed.

"We're delighted the Supreme Court agrees that Mr. Wooden is not an armed career criminal and never should have been subject to a fifteen-year mandatory-minimum sentence," Wooden's attorney Allon Kedem wrote in an email.

Kedem said that the government had previously agreed that his recommended a sentence had he not qualified for a stronger sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act was about two years and he has already served much more than that. Kedem said that "once he is resentenced, we expect him to be sent back home to his family."

The Armed Career Criminal Act has been the subject of frequent litigation before the Supreme Court.