In United States v. Rahimi, 602 U.S. ____, (2024), the Court held that 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8) is not facially unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.
Section 922(g)(8) prohibits an individual subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing a firearm if that order includes a finding that he “represents a credible threat to the physical safety of [an] intimate partner,” or a child of the partner or individual. 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(8). The majority explained:
When an individual poses a clear threat of physical violence to another, the threatening individual may be disarmed. Section 922(g)(8) is by no means identical to these founding era regimes, but it does not need to be. See Bruen, 597 U. S., at 30. Its prohibition on the possession of firearms by those found by a court to present a threat to others fits neatly within the tradition the surety and going armed laws represent.Like the surety and going armed laws, Section 922(g)(8)(C)(i) applies to individuals found to threaten the physical safety of another. This provision is “relevantly similar” to those founding era regimes in both why and how it burdens the Second Amendment right. Id., at 29. Section 922(g)(8) restricts gun use to mitigate demonstrated threats of physical violence, just as the surety and going armed laws do. Unlike the regulation struck down in Bruen, Section 922(g)(8) does not broadly restrict arms use by the public generally.The burden Section 922(g)(8) imposes on the right to bear arms also fits within our regulatory tradition. While we do not suggest that the Second Amendment prohibits the enactment of laws banning the possession of guns by categories of persons thought by a legislature to present a special danger of misuse, see Heller, 554 U. S., at 626, we note that Section 922(g)(8) applies only once a court has found that the defendant “represents a credible threat to the physical safety” of another. §922(g)(8)(C)(i). That matches the surety and going armed laws, which involved judicial determinations of whether a particular defendant likely would threaten or had threatened another with a weapon.Moreover, like surety bonds of limited duration, Section 922(g)(8)’s restriction was temporary as applied to Rahimi. Section 922(g)(8) only prohibits firearm possession so long as the defendant “is” subject to a restraining order. §922(g)(8). In Rahimi’s case that is one to two years after his release from prison, according to Tex. Fam. Code Ann. §85.025(c) (West 2019). App. 6–7.Finally, the penalty—another relevant aspect of the burden—also fits within the regulatory tradition. The going armed laws provided for imprisonment, 4 Blackstone 149, and if imprisonment was permissible to respond to the use of guns to threaten the physical safety of others, then the lesser restriction of temporary disarmament that Section 922(g)(8) imposes is also permissible.In Heller, McDonald, and Bruen, this Court did not “undertake an exhaustive historical analysis . . . of the full scope of the Second Amendment.” Bruen, 597 U. S., at 31. Nor do we do so today. Rather, we conclude only this: An individual found by a court to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of another may be temporarily disarmed consistent with the Second Amendment. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Next, in Smith v. Arizona, 602 U.S. ___ (2024), the Court considered the application of the Confrontation Clause "to a case in which an expert witness restates an absent lab analyst’s factual assertions to support his own opinion testimony."
“Where testimonial statements are involved,” that Court explained, “the Framers [did not mean] to leave the Sixth Amendment’s protection to the vagaries of the rules of evidence.”[T]ruth is everything when it comes to the kind of basis testimony presented here. If an expert for the prosecution conveys an out-of-court statement in support of his opinion, and the statement supports that opinion only if true, then the statement has been offered for the truth of what it asserts. How could it be otherwise? “The whole point” of the prosecutor’s eliciting such a statement is “to establish—because of the [statement’s] truth—a basis for the jury to credit the testifying expert’s” opinion. Or said a bit differently, the truth of the basis testimony is what makes it useful to the prosecutor; that is what supplies the predicate for—and thus gives value to—the state expert’s opinion. So “[t]here is no meaningful distinction between disclosing an out-of-court statement” to “explain the basis of an expert’s opinion” and “disclosing that statement for its truth.” Williams, 567 U. S., at 106 (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment). A State may use only the former label, but in all respects the two purposes merge.Our holding today follows from all this Court has held about the Confrontation Clause’s application to forensic evidence. A State may not introduce the testimonial out-of-court statements of a forensic analyst at trial, unless she is unavailable and the defendant has had a prior chance to cross-examine her. See Crawford, 541 U. S., at 68; Melendez-Diaz, 557 U. S., at 311. Neither may the State introduce those statements through a surrogate analyst who did not participate in their creation. See Bullcoming, 564 U. S., at 663. And nothing changes if the surrogate—as in this case—presents the out-of-court statements as the basis for his expert opinion. Those statements, as we have explained, come into evidence for their truth—because only if true can they provide a reason to credit the substitute expert. So a defendant has the right to cross-examine the person who made them.That means Arizona does not escape the Confrontation Clause just because Rast’s records came in to explain the basis of Longoni’s opinion. The Arizona Court of Appeals thought otherwise, and so we vacate its judgment. To address the additional issue of whether Rast’s records were testimonial (including whether that issue was forfeited), we remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Finally, in Erlinger v. United States, 602 U.S. ___ (2024), the majority held that the Fifth and Sixth Amendments require a unanimous jury to make the determination beyond a reasonable doubt that a defendant’s past offenses were committed on separate occasions for ACCA purposes.
This case concerns the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) and the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. ACCA imposes lengthy mandatory prison terms on certain defendants who have previously committed three violent felonies or serious drug offenses on separate occasions. The question we face is whether a judge may decide that a defendant’s past offenses were committed on separate occasions under a preponderance-of-the-evidence standard, or whether the Fifth and Sixth Amendments require a unanimous jury to make that determination beyond a reasonable doubt.Commendably, the government concedes before us, as it did before the court of appeals, what all this means for Mr. Erlinger’s case and others like it. Under §922(g), Mr. Erlinger faced between 0 and 10 years in prison. §924(a)(2) (2012 ed.). To trigger ACCA and expose him to longer prison terms, the government had to prove that his past included three convictions for “violent felon[ies]” or “serious drug offense[s]” that were “committed on occasions different from one another.” §924(e)(1). And under Wooden, deciding whether those past offenses occurred on three or more different occasions is a fact-laden task. Were the crimes “committed close in time”? 595 U. S., at 369. How about the “[p]roximity” of their “location[s]”? Ibid. Were the offenses “similar or intertwined” in purpose and character? Ibid. All these questions, Wooden observed, “may be relevant” to determining whether the offenses were committed on one occasion or separate ones—and all require facts to be found before ACCA’s more punitive mandatory minimum sentence may be lawfully deployed. Ibid.As the government recognizes, there is no doubt what the Constitution requires in these circumstances: Virtually “any fact” that “‘increase[s] the prescribed range of penalties to which a criminal defendant is exposed’” must be resolved by a unanimous jury beyond a reasonable doubt (or freely admitted in a guilty plea). Apprendi, 530 U. S., at 490; see Brief for United States 9. Judges may not assume the jury’s fact-finding function for themselves, let alone purport to perform it using a mere preponderance-of-the-evidence standard. To hold otherwise might not portend a revival of the vice-admiralty courts the framers so feared. See Part II–A, supra. But all the same, it would intrude on a power the Fifth and Sixth Amendments reserve to the American people.While recognizing Mr. Erlinger was entitled to have a jury resolve ACCA’s occasions inquiry unanimously and beyond a reasonable doubt, we decide no more than that. For purposes of the proceedings before us, the parties take as given that Mr. Erlinger committed four burglaries and that each qualifies as a “violent offense” under ACCA. But they disagree vigorously about whether those burglaries took place on at least three different occasions (so that ACCA’s enhanced sentences would apply) or during a single criminal episode (so that they would not). Presented with evidence about the times, locations, purpose, and character of those crimes, a jury might have concluded that some or all occurred on different occasions. Or it might not have done so. All we can say for certain is that the sentencing court erred in taking that decision from a jury of Mr. Erlinger’s peers.
The majority also explains, "traditional tools exist to address the prejudicial effect evidence about a defendant’s past crimes can have on a jury. Most obviously, a court can bifurcate the proceedings. In that “common,” Apprendi, 530 U. S., at 521, n. 10 (THOMAS, J., concurring), and often “fairest” practice, Spencer v. Texas, 385 U. S. 554, 567 (1967), a jury is first tasked with assessing whether the government has proved the elements of the §922(g) felon-in-possession charge. Then, and only if it finds the defendant guilty, the jury turns to consider evidence regarding whether the defendant’s prior offenses occurred on different occasions for purposes of applying ACCA’s mandatory minimum sentence under §924(e).
I also thought it was worth noting the majority's footnote about Justice Jackson's dissent.
Finally, Justice Thomas again calls on the Court to overrule Almendarez-Torres.JUSTICE JACKSON pursues an argument neither the government nor amicus nor the principal dissent attempts. She says Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466 (2000), “was wrongly decided,” and all but calls on the Court to overturn our many precedents applying it, post, at 1, and n. 1, 10–18. But rather than meaningfully engage with the Constitution, its original meaning and history, or our precedents, JUSTICE JACKSON would abandon “constitutional theory” and appeal to a different authority. Post, at 27. “In my view,” post, at 20, JUSTICE JACKSON contends, juries cannot “deal with the fine-grained, nuanced determinations . . . that are necessary to fairly adjudicate factual questions like the one that ACCA’s occasions inquiry raises,” post, at 23. But the Constitution does not take such a dim view about the capacity of jurors or the rigors of trial. Surely, too, juries are no less capable than judges to decide whether three past events happened on three separate occasions. Day in and day out, using everyday trial procedures, juries decide exponentially more complex questions than that. Nor, of course, does Apprendi prohibit legislatures from enacting reforms authorizing judges to lower sentences based on their own fact-finding. See, e.g., First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. 115– 391, 132 Stat. 5194; 18 U. S. C. §3553(f ) (doing just that). The only thing judges may not do consistent with Apprendi is increase a defendant’s exposure to punishment based on their own fact-finding. All of which leaves JUSTICE JACKSON with her real complaint: In her view, it is “wildly inefficient” to require the government to call witnesses and present evidence—which is to say prove its case—when a judge might more easily enhance a defendant’s exposure to punishment by consulting “sometimes-decades-old,” post, at 23, and error-prone court records, infra, at 17–19. But does JUSTICE JACKSON really think it too much to ask the government to prove its case (as it concedes it must) with reliable evidence before seeking enhanced punishments under a statute like ACCA when the “practical realit[y]” for defendants like Mr. Erlinger is exposure to an additional decade (or more) in prison? Post, at 27. JUSTICE JACKSON may view juries as “roadblocks” to higher punishments. Post, at 18. But “[t]he bottom line is this”: the people ratified the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, not any of our personal views.
