SCOTUS has granted certiorari, vacated the sentence, and remanded the cases back to lower courts – generally known as a GVR order – in ten cases since Johnson v US was decided in June of 2015. The GVR is considered an expedited way of handling cases when a new precedent has been established. A total of ten cases have now been affected by the vagueness doctrine as it applies to the Armed Career Criminal Act enhancements and what crimes do or do not meet the criteria of a violent crime.
In an almost inevitable domino effect, the 10th Circuit has assumed that the same vagueness doctrine should be applied to the Sentencing Guidelines. In US v Smith, the court notes that the wording in the USSG is identical to the ACCA. In that case, Nathaniel Smith was sentenced to ten years for possession with intent to distribute because his sentence was adjusted upward based upon his career offender status. His appeal was based on the fact that two California convictions for evading an officer were considered “crimes of violence.”
In the 7th Circuit, federal public defenders filed a motion for rehearing which the Court granted earlier this month. In the motion, the FPD argues that the unconstitutionally vagueness found in Johnson most likely makes US v Tichenor, a case the 7th has relied on in many cases, is most likely no longer good law. FPDs in the 11th Circuit are filing a petition for a rehearing based on the same criteria.
It seems that Johnson v US, vagueness doctrine, and what crimes meet the criteria of the ACCA will continue to have a long lasting effect on both appeals and sentencing throughout federal courts in all circuits.