Preview of Sykes, the Supreme Court’s Latest ACCA Case

The Supreme Court will hear argument on January 12 in Sykes v. United States, the latest entry in its recent series of cases on the Armed Career Criminal Act.  This case may provide a good opportunity for the Court to clarify what state of mind is required for a prior conviction to trigger the ACCA’s fifteen-year mandatory minimum.  (For background on the ACCA, see my posts here, here, and here.)

The Court created the state-of-mind problem in Begay v. United States, 553 U.S. 137 (2008), which held that a prior conviction does not count as a “violent felony” under the ACCA unless the crime was “purposeful, violent, and aggressive.”  This is a rather mysterious phrase.  Although the word “purposeful” is a familiar culpability term, it is not clear what “violent” and “aggressive” are meant to connote in this context.  And even “purposeful” has some ambiguity, as any law student who has ever wrestled with the elusive distinction between “general intent” and “specific intent” will tell you.

Begay itself indicated that DUI does not satisfy the PVA test because DUI is a strict liability offense.  This teaches that some culpability is indeed required for an offense to count as a “violent felony,” but Begay provided little guidance beyond that.

Then came Chambers v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 687 (2009).  

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Does the Constitution Protect the OWI Suspect?

No. I am willing to argue that no other crime has caused lawmakers and courts of this land to bend the Constitution more than drunk driving. The traditional ideals we have in criminal law of a defendant’s Constitutional protections, such as your right to be free from illegal stop, search, or seizure; your right to fully cross examine your accuser; your right to present a defense; and your right to due process, have been slowly eroded away over the years to the extent that many of these defenses and rights are extinct.

The problem traces its way back to the legislature’s constant bogeyman, the need to protect the public, an important and serious role. Drunk driving has been a danger to society in the United States since there has been alcohol (I would guess long before 1776) and modern automobile transportation (let’s just go back to 1908 and the Model T). Safe to say, it has been a while. What we may think of as the modern attitudes and laws about drunk driving really only stretch back 30 years. In this vein, let’s take a modern look at drunk driving law and policy as it stands today.  

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New Law Review Comments Cover Social Networking, Wind Farms, Deceptive Trade Practices Act, Open Records Law, and Purchase Money Security Interests

Now available online, the recently published student comments in the Marquette Law Review cover a wide range of topics.  They include Nathan Petrashek’s comment on the impact of online social networking on Fourth Amendment privacy.  Since social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace attract both criminals (e.g., sexual predators, identity thieves) and the police who investigate them, the question whether users have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their voluntary disclosures under the well-established Katz test is poised to become a significant issue in the near future.  Petrashek relies on Fourth Amendment doctrine, as well as the First Amendment right of association and good public policy, to argue that user content should be shielded from police scrutiny in the absence of a warrant.

Meanwhile, Marvin Bynum’s Golden Quill-winning comment addresses the feasibility of establishing offshore wind farms in Lakes Michigan and Superior. 

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