Descamps v. United States
The Supreme Court ruled that a sentencing judge cannot dig into the paperwork behind an old conviction to decide it really amounted to generic burglary when the state law defining that crime is written as a single, broad definition rather than a list of separate alternative crimes.
The decision rejects a Ninth Circuit approach that let judges look at facts from old cases to stretch state convictions into matches for federal sentencing categories, reinforcing a rule that focuses only on what a defendant was legally convicted of, not what he may have actually done.
“The key, we emphasized, is elements, not facts.”
The majority's core principle for deciding when a prior conviction counts toward a longer sentence.
How it got here: A federal trial court and the Ninth Circuit both applied a sentence enhancement based on the prior conviction; the Supreme Court agreed to hear Descamps' appeal to resolve a circuit split.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Matthew Descamps was convicted of illegally possessing a firearm as a felon. Federal prosecutors sought a much longer mandatory sentence under a law that punishes repeat violent offenders more harshly, pointing to his earlier California burglary conviction. California's burglary law is unusual: it covers anyone who enters a building or other location intending to commit theft or a felony, even if the entry itself was completely lawful, like a shoplifter walking into an open store.
The question before the Court
If a man's old burglary conviction came from a law broader than typical burglary, could a judge look at the case file to decide it still counts as a serious "violent felony" for a longer federal prison sentence?
The Court's answer
No — a judge cannot look behind a conviction like this one to find hidden facts that would make it count as a "violent felony." The Court explained that judges may examine extra case documents only when the state law itself lists several separate crimes in the alternative (for example, entering a "building or a car"), because then it's unclear which specific crime the person was actually convicted of. California's burglary law isn't written that way — it has one single, broad definition of entry that covers far more conduct than classic burglary, including simple shoplifting.
Because there was no genuine uncertainty about which alternative crime applied, there was nothing for a judge to sort out by checking the paperwork. The mismatch between California's law and the traditional definition of burglary meant the conviction could never count as the more serious federal offense, no matter what the defendant actually did during that crime.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
People with older, broadly written state burglary (or similar) convictions may no longer face automatic 15-year mandatory minimum sentences under the federal Armed Career Criminal Act, even if the facts of their old case sound like a classic burglary. Prosecutors and defense lawyers nationwide must now sort state statutes into "divisible" and "indivisible" categories to know when extra sentencing enhancements can apply.
What changes now
This is a final merits decision that reverses the Ninth Circuit and ends Descamps' enhanced sentence. Going forward, federal courts nationwide must apply the elements-only test and cannot use the "modified categorical approach" for prior convictions under indivisible statutes, meaning some past convictions that once triggered mandatory 15-year sentences under this law may no longer qualify. Lower courts will need to sort state criminal statutes into divisible and indivisible categories case by case.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly left open whether Descamps' burglary conviction could instead qualify under a different part of the sentencing law covering crimes that "present a serious potential risk of physical injury," since the government had given up that argument. The ruling also doesn't decide how courts should treat every ambiguous state statute — only the specific divisible/indivisible distinction at issue here.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Kennedy
Justice Kennedy joined the majority in full but wrote separately to flag the real-world cost of the ruling: many state criminal statutes that reach serious crimes will no longer qualify as predicate offenses simply because of how they happen to be drafted, forcing states to rewrite their laws or leaving serious offenders under-punished. He suggested Congress reconsider the sentencing law's design if it wants uniform treatment across states.
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas agreed with the outcome but rejected the majority's divisible/indivisible framework entirely. He argued that under his long-held view of the Sixth Amendment, judges should never be allowed to find facts about a prior conviction that increase a defendant's sentence, making the whole divisible-statute inquiry unnecessary and, in his view, still constitutionally problematic even as narrowed by the majority.
Dissent — Justice Alito
“I would give ACCA a more practical reading.”Alito's opening objection to the majority's technical, elements-only approach.
Justice Alito argued the majority's divisible/indivisible distinction is far shakier than it claims, pointing to prior cases involving statutes that may not have truly been divisible either. He would have allowed judges to look at case records whenever they clearly show a defendant necessarily admitted or a jury necessarily found every element of standard burglary, and would have upheld Descamps' enhanced sentence because the plea record showed an unobjected-to admission of breaking and entering.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied its existing 'categorical approach,' which asks courts to compare the legal elements of a past crime to the elements of a standard, widely recognized version of that crime rather than digging into what actually happened in the earlier case.
- A narrower 'modified' version of that approach applies only when a state law is 'divisible' — meaning it lists more than one separate crime in the alternative, like burglary of 'a building or a car' — because only then is it unclear from the statute alone which specific crime formed the basis of the conviction.
- California's burglary law is not divisible in that sense; it has just one broad definition covering any entry with intent to steal or commit a felony, without carving out separate alternative versions of the crime.
- Because there was no genuine uncertainty about which of several alternative crimes applied, allowing a judge to consult old case documents to find facts matching generic burglary would improperly convert an elements-based inquiry into a search for underlying facts.
- The Court found this fact-based approach would also raise Sixth Amendment concerns, since only a jury — not a sentencing judge — is entitled to find facts that increase a defendant's maximum punishment, and would recreate the very unpredictability and unfairness the categorical approach was designed to prevent.
- Since generic unlawful entry was never an element, or an alternative element, of California's law, a conviction under that law could never legally equate to the standard definition of burglary regardless of what the defendant actually did.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Taylor v. United States (495 U. S. 575)
The Court relies on Taylor's elements-based test as the foundation for today's ruling.
Reaffirms Shepard v. United States (544 U. S. 13)
The Court treats Shepard as confirming that extra documents may only pin down which alternative element applied.