Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984, a defendant convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm faces more severe punishment if he has three or more previous convictions for a “violent felony,” a term defined to include any felony that “involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.” 18 U. S. C. §924(e)(2)(B). We must decide whether this part of the definition of a violent felony survives the Constitution’s prohibition of vague criminal laws.
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Two features of the residual clause conspire to make it unconstitutionally vague. In the first place, the residual clause leaves grave uncertainty about how to estimate the risk posed by a crime. It ties the judicial assessment of risk to a judicially imagined “ordinary case” of a crime, not to real-world facts or statutory elements. How does one go about deciding what kind of conduct the “ordinary case” of a crime involves? … James illustrates how speculative (and how detached from statutory elements) this enterprise can become. Explaining why attempted burglary poses a serious potential risk of physical injury, the Court said: “An armed would-be burglar may be spotted by a police officer, a private security guard, or a participant in a neighborhood watch program. Or a homeowner . . . may give chase, and a violent encounter may ensue.” 550 U. S., at 211. The dissent, by contrast, asserted that any confrontation that occurs during an attempted burglary “is likely to consist of nothing more than the occupant’s yelling ‘Who’s there?’ from his window, and the burglar’s running away.” Id., at 226 (opinion of SCALIA, J.). The residual clause offers no reliable way to choose between these competing accounts of what “ordinary” attempted burglary involves.
At the same time, the residual clause leaves uncertainty about how much risk it takes for a crime to qualify as a violent felony. It is one thing to apply an imprecise “serious potential risk” standard to real-world facts; it is quite another to apply it to a judge-imagined abstraction. By asking whether the crime “otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk,” moreover, the residual clause forces courts to interpret “serious potential risk” in light of the four enumerated crimes—burglary, arson, extortion, and crimes involving the use of explosives. These offenses are “far from clear in respect to the degree of risk each poses.” Begay [v. United States], 553 U. S. [137,] 143 (2008). Does the ordinary burglar invade an occupied home by night or an unoccupied home by day? Does the typical extortionist threaten his victim in person with the use of force, or does he threaten his victim by mail with the revelation of embarrassing personal information? By combining indeterminacy about how to measure the risk posed by a crime with indeterminacy about how much risk it takes for the crime to qualify as a violent felony, the residual clause produces more unpredictability and arbitrariness than the Due Process Clause tolerates.
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The Government and the dissent next point out that dozens of federal and state criminal laws use terms like “substantial risk,” “grave risk,” and “unreasonable risk,” suggesting that to hold the residual clause unconstitutional is to place these provisions in constitutional doubt. See post, at 7–8. Not at all. Almost … all of the cited laws require gauging the riskiness of conduct in which an individual defendant engages on a particular occasion. As a general matter, we do not doubt the constitutionality of laws that call for the application of a qualitative standard such as “substantial risk” to real-world conduct; “the law is full of instances where a man’s fate depends on his estimating rightly . . . some matter of degree,” Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373, 377 (1913). The residual clause, however, requires application of the “serious potential risk” standard to an idealized ordinary case of the crime. Because “the elements necessary to determine the imaginary ideal are uncertain both in nature and degree of effect,” this abstract inquiry offers significantly less predictability than one “[t]hat deals with the actual, not with an imaginary condition other than the facts.” [Citation omitted.]
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We hold that imposing an increased sentence under the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act violates the Constitution’s guarantee of due process. Our contrary holdings in James and Sykes are overruled. …
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Justice Kennedy, concurring in the judgment.
In my view, and for the reasons well stated by Justice Alito in dissent, the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act is not unconstitutionally vague under the categorical approach or a record-based approach. On the assumption that the categorical approach ought to still control, and for the reasons given by Justice Thomas in Part I of his opinion concurring in the judgment, Johnson’s conviction for possession of a short-barreled shotgun does not qualify as a violent felony.
For these reasons, I concur in the judgment.
Justice Thomas, concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the Court that Johnson’s sentence cannot stand. But rather than use the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause to nullify an Act of Congress, I would resolve this case on more ordinary grounds. Under conventional principles of interpretation and our precedents, the offense of unlawfully possessing a short-barreled shotgun does not constitute a “violent felony” under the residual clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA).
The majority wants more. Not content to engage in the usual business of interpreting statutes, it holds this clause to be unconstitutionally vague, notwithstanding the fact that on four previous occasions we found it determinate enough for judicial application. As Justice Alito explains, that decision cannot be reconciled with our precedents concerning the vagueness doctrine. See post, at 13– 17 (dissenting opinion). But even if it were a closer case under those decisions, I would be wary of holding the residual clause to be unconstitutionally vague. Although I have joined the Court in applying our modern vagueness doctrine in the past, I have become increasingly concerned about its origins and application. [Citation omitted.] Simply put, our vagueness doctrine shares an uncomfortably similar history with substantive due process, a judicially created doctrine lacking any basis in the Constitution.
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Justice Alito, dissenting.
The Court is tired of the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984 (ACCA) and in particular its residual clause. Anxious to rid our docket of bothersome residual clause cases, the Court is willing to do what it takes to get the job done. So brushing aside stare decisis, the Court holds that the residual clause is unconstitutionally vague even though we have twice rejected that very argument within the last eight years. The canons of interpretation get no greater respect. Inverting the canon that a statute should be construed if possible to avoid unconstitutionality, the Court rejects a reasonable construction of the residual clause that would avoid any vagueness problems, preferring an alternative that the Court finds to be unconstitutionally vague. And the Court is not stopped by the well-established rule that a statute is void for vagueness only if it is vague in all its applications. While conceding that some applications of the residual clause are straightforward, the Court holds that the clause is now void in its entirety. The Court’s determination to be done with residual clause cases, if not its fidelity to legal principles, is impressive.
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