{"id":8188,"date":"2009-11-27T14:09:33","date_gmt":"2009-11-27T19:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=8188"},"modified":"2009-11-27T19:51:11","modified_gmt":"2009-11-28T00:51:11","slug":"federalism-and-criminal-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/11\/federalism-and-criminal-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Federalism and Criminal Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"map\"This is the\u00a0fourth in a series of posts reviewing last term\u2019s criminal cases in the United States Supreme Court and previewing the new term.<\/em><\/p>\n

Habeas corpus presents the classic federalism problem in criminal law: how can\u00a0federal courts overturn\u00a0flawed state-court judgments while maintaining due respect for\u00a0state sovereignty and the autonomy of state criminal-justice systems?\u00a0\u00a0But federalism issues can also appear\u00a0in\u00a0criminal cases that originate in federal court.\u00a0\u00a0In its new term, the Supreme Court has at least two such cases.<\/p>\n

First, in United States v. Johnson<\/em>, the Court will consider whether\u00a0a battery conviction in Florida state court counts as a violent\u00a0crime for purposes of the Armed Career Criminal\u00a0Act, a federal sentencing statute.\u00a0 \u00a0(I have posted several times about ACCA in the past year, most recently here<\/a>.)\u00a0 Although “battery”\u00a0normally\u00a0evokes\u00a0images of serious violent crime,\u00a0Florida law defines\u00a0battery so that it\u00a0includes any nonconsensual touching, regardless of risk of injury.\u00a0 For that reason, the Florida Supreme Court has already\u00a0ruled that\u00a0battery is not<\/em> a violent crime for state-law purposes.\u00a0 Thus, in Johnson, <\/em>the United States Supreme Court is confronted with a question of whether it should defer to state-court characterizations of state crimes for purposes of implementing a federal statute.<\/p>\n

Second, in United States v. Weyrauch, <\/em>the Court must decide whether a\u00a0state official can be convicted of honest-services fraud based on a conflict of interest that did not violate state law.\u00a0 (This is one of three new cases in which the Court will consider various dimensions of the federal crime of honest-services fraud.)\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Normally, we expect each state to\u00a0define the ethical duties of its own public officials.\u00a0 This seems a basic attribute of sovereignty.\u00a0 Thus, the theory of prosecution in Weyrauch<\/em> — that the defendant violated a uniform federal ethical standard for state officials\u00a0— strikes me as\u00a0a rather extraordinary (and, I daresay, unfortunate) federal intrusion into the administration of state government.<\/p>\n

Both Johnson <\/em>and Weyrauch <\/em>ask the Court to choose between what I have termed elsewhere<\/a> “national uniformity” (uniform treatment of criminal defendants across the entire federal system) and “local uniformity” (uniform treatment of criminal defendants in state and federal courts within the same state).\u00a0 Should the Court seek to ensure, as far as possible, that battery convictions are treated the same for ACCA purposes regardless of the state from which they derive?\u00a0 Or should the Court be more concerned that a Florida battery conviction is treated the same regardless of whether a Florida\u00a0recidivist is being sentenced\u00a0in state or federal court?\u00a0 Should the Court seek to establish uniform national ethical standards for state officials, or should the Court defer to each state’s resolution of the underlying policy questions?<\/p>\n

Earlier posts in this series:<\/em><\/p>\n