Descamps v. United States
The Supreme Court ruled that a man's prior California burglary conviction could not be counted toward a mandatory 15-year federal sentencing enhancement, because California's burglary law is written more broadly than ordinary burglary and does not break the crime into separate alternative versions a judge could sort through.
The decision cuts off a shortcut some judges were using to dig into old case files and guess what a defendant 'really' did, reinforcing that repeat-offender sentence enhancements must rest strictly on the legal elements of the prior crime, not after-the-fact reconstruction of the facts.
“The key, we emphasized, is elements, not facts.”
The majority's core principle for why only a crime's legal elements, not the underlying facts, can be compared to the generic offense.
How it got here: A federal trial court applied the enhanced sentence; the Ninth Circuit affirmed relying on its own prior ruling; the Supreme Court agreed to resolve a circuit split.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Michael Descamps was convicted of illegally possessing a firearm as a felon. Federal prosecutors sought a mandatory 15-year minimum sentence under a law targeting repeat violent offenders, pointing to his earlier California burglary conviction. California's burglary law is unusual: it covers anyone who enters a place intending to steal or commit a felony, even if the entry itself was completely lawful, such as a shoplifter walking into an open store.
The question before the Court
If a state's burglary law is broader than the standard definition of burglary but doesn't list separate alternative versions of the crime, can a sentencing judge dig into the case file to decide the conviction still counts as burglary for a federal sentencing enhancement?
Why it matters
People with old convictions under broadly written state laws — not just for burglary — may now avoid the steep mandatory minimums that come with being labeled an "armed career criminal." Prosecutors and judges nationwide must apply a more mechanical, predictable test when calculating these enhanced sentences, rather than case-by-case factual digging into decades-old plea files.
What changes now
The case is a final merits ruling, not a remand for further factfinding — the enhancement is simply barred. Descamps' sentence enhancement under the repeat-offender law was improper. More broadly, sentencing courts nationwide must now determine whether a prior conviction's statute is divisible before ever consulting case-specific documents, and states with broad, indivisible criminal statutes may need to rewrite them if they want convictions under those laws to count toward federal enhancements.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether California's burglary law might still qualify as a violent felony under a separate 'residual clause' covering crimes that risk physical injury, since the government did not raise that argument. It also left open whether courts may consider authoritative judicial rulings, not just statutory text, when deciding if a law's elements are divisible.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Kennedy
Justice Kennedy joined the majority but flagged serious concerns: many defendants plead guilty without ever considering later sentencing consequences, and the ruling will force an unknown but likely large number of state legislatures to rewrite their criminal statutes to preserve federal enhancement eligibility. He suggested Congress reconsider the law's design given these disruptions.
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas agreed with the outcome but rejected the divisible/indivisible framework entirely. He argued any judicial factfinding about a prior conviction that increases a defendant's sentence violates the Sixth Amendment under Apprendi, regardless of whether the statute is divisible, and that the whole doctrinal apparatus exists only because the Court has not yet overruled a separate precedent allowing judges to find facts about prior convictions.
Dissent — Justice Alito
“I would give ACCA a more practical reading.”Alito's summary of his preferred, more flexible approach to counting prior burglary convictions.
Justice Alito argued for a more practical rule: when it is clear from the record that a defendant necessarily admitted or a jury necessarily found the elements of generic burglary, the conviction should count, regardless of whether the statute is technically divisible. He argued the majority's elements-only approach is not required by the statute's text, misreads precedent, will create serious line-drawing problems distinguishing 'elements' from 'means,' and will let identical criminal conduct be treated differently depending on how a state happened to word its statute.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the 'categorical approach,' which compares only the legal elements of a defendant's prior crime to the elements of a generic version of that crime, ignoring the specific facts of what actually happened.
- Under this approach, a modified version — letting judges peek at charging papers, plea transcripts, and jury instructions — is allowed only when a statute is 'divisible,' meaning it lists separate alternative sets of elements, such as burglary of 'a building or an automobile.'
- California's burglary law is 'indivisible': it has a single set of elements that is simply broader than generic burglary, covering lawful entries like walking into an open store to shoplift, so there was no alternative element for a judge to identify from the case record.
- Letting judges examine case files to guess whether a defendant's conduct matched generic burglary, despite the indivisible statute, would let judges find facts that were never decided by a jury or admitted in a plea, raising serious concerns under the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.
- Because Congress used the word 'convictions' rather than referring to underlying conduct, and because a facts-based inquiry would create unpredictable, resource-intensive litigation over old case files, the Court concluded the modified approach cannot be used for indivisible statutes.
- Since California's burglary law lacks the unlawful-entry element required by generic burglary and has no alternative elements to sort through, a conviction under it can never count as generic burglary for the enhancement.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Abrogates Aguila-Montes de Oca (655 F. 3d 915)
Rejects the Ninth Circuit's approach letting judges look at case facts to identify hidden 'implied' elements in any broad statute.
Reaffirms Taylor v. United States (495 U.S. 575)
Reaffirms Taylor's rule that only a crime's statutory elements, not its underlying facts, may be compared to generic burglary.
Reaffirms Shepard v. United States (544 U.S. 13)
Reaffirms that extra case documents may be reviewed only to identify which alternative element applied, not to find facts.