United States v. Davis
The Supreme Court struck down part of a federal gun-crime law, ruling that its catch-all definition of a "crime of violence" is too vague to be enforced.
The decision means people convicted under that catch-all provision for crimes like conspiracy could see those specific gun convictions and sentences challenged, while the law's more specific definition of violent crimes remains in force.
“In our constitutional order, a vague law is no law at all.”
The majority's opening statement of the vagueness principle underlying the decision.
How it got here: The Fifth Circuit held the catch-all clause unconstitutional after a remand from the Supreme Court, upholding one gun conviction but vacating the other; the government sought review.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Maurice Davis and Andre Glover committed a string of armed gas station robberies in Texas. Along with robbery and conspiracy charges, prosecutors charged them under a federal law that adds long mandatory prison time for using a gun during a "crime of violence," which the law defined two ways — one listing specific violent elements, the other a vaguer catch-all about offenses that by their nature risk force.
The question before the Court
Could Congress punish people for using a gun during a "crime of violence" defined only as an offense that, by its nature, risks physical force?
The Court's answer
No — the Court ruled that this catch-all definition of a "crime of violence" is unconstitutionally vague. The provision required judges to imagine an idealized, "ordinary" version of the underlying crime and guess how risky it typically is, rather than looking at what the defendant actually did. The Court had already struck down two nearly identical provisions elsewhere in federal law on the same reasoning, and it found no way to read this law differently, despite the government's last-minute argument that it could be read to focus on the defendant's real conduct instead.
The Court also rejected using the canon that favors constitutional readings of ambiguous laws, because that canon has traditionally been used to narrow a criminal law's reach, not to expand it to cover more conduct and save it from being void. As a result, one of the two men's gun convictions — the one resting on this catch-all clause — cannot stand, while the other conviction, based on the law's more specific definition, remains valid.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Thousands of people convicted of using a gun during a "crime of violence" under the now-invalid catch-all provision may be able to challenge those convictions and could be resentenced or released earlier than expected. Prosecutors going forward can no longer rely on that provision and must instead show the underlying crime specifically involves force as an element.
What changes now
The men's convictions on the count that depended on the invalidated catch-all clause remain vacated, while their conviction based on the law's other, specific definition stands. The case returns to the Fifth Circuit to decide pending requests for full resentencing. More broadly, the ruling opens the door for other defendants convicted under the same catch-all clause to challenge those convictions on direct or collateral review.
What this does not decide
The ruling does not affect convictions resting on the law's other definition of "crime of violence," which lists specific violent elements and remains valid. It also does not decide whether the ruling applies retroactively to already-final convictions, an issue the dissent flagged as unresolved.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Kavanaugh
“Yet today, after 33 years and tens of thousands of federal prosecutions, the Court suddenly finds a key provision of §924(c) to be unconstitutional because it is supposedly too vague.”The dissent's objection to striking down a long-used federal gun-crime provision.
Justice Kavanaugh argued the majority wrongly imported the "categorical approach" from cases about prior convictions into a law that punishes present, currently-charged conduct, where none of the fairness or jury-trial concerns behind that approach apply. He read the statute's text as naturally focused on the actual defendant's actual conduct, and argued that even if the text were ambiguous, courts should adopt that constitutional reading rather than strike the law down, warning the ruling would let violent gun offenders escape punishment or be released early.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied its vagueness doctrine, which rests on due process (fair warning of what conduct is illegal) and separation of powers (only Congress, not judges, may define crimes), and asked whether the catch-all clause required an unpredictable judicial guessing exercise.
- Relying on its recent decisions in Johnson v. United States and Sessions v. Dimaya, which struck down nearly identically worded catch-all clauses elsewhere in federal law, the Court explained that those clauses required a "categorical approach" — imagining an idealized, ordinary version of a crime and guessing how risky it typically is, rather than looking at what the defendant actually did.
- The government argued the Court should instead read this clause as requiring a case-specific approach that looks at the defendant's actual conduct, which would avoid the vagueness problem entirely. The Court rejected this, holding that the statute's text — particularly its use of the word "offense" and the phrase "by its nature" — must carry the same generic, categorical meaning as the nearly identical language in a related statute the Court had already read categorically.
- The Court found this categorical reading reinforced by the statute's place among dozens of other federal laws using the same phrase, by the law's history of being copied from that related statute, and by the fact that a conduct-specific reading would undo Congress's deliberate 1984 narrowing of the law to cover only violent crimes.
- The Court declined to use the canon of interpreting ambiguous laws to avoid unconstitutionality, reasoning that this canon has traditionally been used only to narrow, not expand, a criminal law's reach, and expanding it here would itself raise the same fair-notice and separation-of-powers concerns the vagueness doctrine protects.
- Having concluded the catch-all clause required the categorical approach, and that Johnson and Dimaya already held that approach unconstitutionally vague when used to judge a crime's inherent risk, the Court concluded the catch-all clause here suffers from the identical constitutional defect.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Johnson v. United States (576 U. S. ___)
The Court relied on Johnson's holding that vague, risk-based catch-all crime definitions cannot support criminal punishment.
Reaffirms Sessions v. Dimaya (584 U. S. ___)
The Court applied Dimaya's reasoning striking down a nearly identical catch-all crime-of-violence clause.
Reaffirms Leocal v. Ashcroft (543 U. S. 1)
The Court relied on Leocal's reading of nearly identical language as requiring a categorical, not case-specific, approach.