Constitutional Law
Nov. 19, 2015
Supreme Court's Johnson decision has enormous implications
The high court declared an Armed Career Criminal Act provision unconstitutional on vagueness grounds.
Erwin Chemerinsky
Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law
UC Berkeley School of Law
Erwin's most recent book is "Worse Than Nothing: The Dangerous Fallacy of Originalism." He is also the author of "Closing the Courthouse," (Yale University Press 2017).
The federal courts are beginning to see the potentially enormous implications of the Supreme Court's decision in Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015), where it declared unconstitutional on vagueness grounds a provision of the federal Armed Career Criminal Act. Although decided less than six months ago, on June 26, already the federal courts of appeals have split over whether it applies retroactively and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has relied on it to strike dow...
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