Brown v. United States Revisions: 5/28/24
The Supreme Court ruled that state drug convictions count toward the Armed Career Criminal Act's mandatory 15-year prison term as long as the drug was listed under federal law at the time of the state crime — later changes to the federal drug schedules cannot erase those prior convictions.
The decision makes it harder for people with old state drug felony convictions to avoid the Act's harsh mandatory minimum when they are later caught illegally possessing a firearm, even if technical updates to federal drug schedules have since created a mismatch between state and federal law.
How it got here: Both District Courts sentenced the defendants under ACCA's mandatory minimum; the Third Circuit affirmed Brown's sentence; the Eleventh Circuit initially vacated Jackson's sentence, then reversed itself and affirmed; the Supreme Court granted certiorari in both cases and consolidated them.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Justin Rashaad Brown had Pennsylvania convictions for possessing marijuana with intent to distribute between 2009 and 2014; Eugene Jackson had Florida cocaine convictions from 1998 and 2004. Both were later caught illegally possessing firearms as convicted felons. The government sought a 15-year mandatory minimum under the Armed Career Criminal Act, arguing those old drug convictions qualified as "serious drug offenses." After each man's state convictions, Congress and federal regulators made technical amendments to the federal drug schedules, creating a mismatch between federal and state drug definitions. Both men argued that mismatch disqualified their old convictions.
The question before the Court
Does a state drug conviction count toward the Armed Career Criminal Act's mandatory 15-year sentence if the drug involved was on the federal controlled substances list when the state crime happened, but was later removed from those lists?
The Court's answer
Yes — a state drug conviction counts as a "serious drug offense" under the Armed Career Criminal Act as long as the drug involved was listed under federal law when the state crime was committed, even if the federal drug schedules were later amended. The Court's backward-looking approach to the Act — established in prior decisions — requires sentencing courts to examine what the law said at the time of the predicate offense, not what it says at sentencing or when the federal firearms charge was filed.
The Court rejected three alternative arguments: that ACCA's cross-reference to the federal Controlled Substances Act automatically updates whenever Congress changes the drug schedules; that ACCA's present-tense wording ("involving … a controlled substance as defined in …") requires judges to use today's schedules; and that any remaining ambiguity should be resolved in defendants' favor. Because the statute was not genuinely ambiguous once read in context and alongside prior precedent, the rule of lenity — which favors defendants when a criminal law is truly unclear — did not apply.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Federal prosecutors seeking the Armed Career Criminal Act's 15-year mandatory minimum for felons caught with guns can rely on old state drug convictions even when the federal drug schedules were later revised. Defense lawyers can no longer escape the enhancement simply by pointing to technical changes in federal drug lists that occurred after the predicate state crimes took place.
What changes now
Both Brown and Jackson will be subject to the Armed Career Criminal Act's 15-year mandatory minimum. Going forward, courts evaluating ACCA enhancements for state drug convictions must compare the federal and state drug schedules as they existed at the time of the predicate state offense, not at the time of the federal firearms charge or sentencing. Courts will need to consult historical federal drug schedules for older convictions, though the majority found this task less burdensome than the defendants claimed.
What this does not decide
The ruling does not address whether state drug convictions can qualify as ACCA predicates when the drug was added to the federal schedules only after the state crime occurred — under this decision, those earlier convictions would not count. The Court also expressly did not change the categorical approach used to match state drug offense elements to federal definitions.
Concurrences and dissents
How the Justices voted
Majority (6). Justice Alito (author), joined by Justice Roberts, Justice Thomas, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kavanaugh, and Justice Barrett.
Dissent (2). Justice Jackson (author), joined by Justice Kagan.
Dissent — Justice Jackson
Justice Jackson argues that ACCA's cross-reference to the Controlled Substances Act's definition of 'controlled substance' should incorporate the drug schedules as they exist at the time of the federal firearms offense — the standard way statutory cross-references work. She contends the majority misread McNeill, which addressed a different question, and that the majority improperly focused on the actual drugs defendants possessed rather than the elements of their state offenses, departing from the categorical approach the Court has long required. Justice Kagan joined in full; Justice Gorsuch joined Parts I, II, and III. Read the full dissent →
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Armed Career Criminal Act is a recidivist statute — one that increases punishment based on a defendant's criminal history — and the Court has previously held in McNeill v. United States (2011) that ACCA's inquiry into prior offenses is inherently 'backward-looking.' That means sentencing courts must examine the law as it existed when the defendant committed the predicate state offense, not how the law stands later.
- The Court compared ACCA's two parallel definitions of 'serious drug offense.' For prior federal drug crimes (§924(e)(2)(A)(i)), a later change to the drug schedules cannot undo the fact that someone was convicted of a federal drug crime. The Court found it would produce a strange asymmetry to treat state drug convictions differently — allowing later schedule changes to erase them — when the two subsections both reference the same Controlled Substances Act.
- The Court rejected the argument that ACCA's cross-reference to the Controlled Substances Act's definition of 'controlled substance' automatically incorporates the drug schedules as updated each year. Under the applicable interpretation rule (the 'reference canon'), a cross-reference to a specific statutory section — like ACCA's citation to 21 U.S.C. § 802 — 'cuts and pastes' that provision as it existed when the referring statute was enacted, rather than silently updating with every later amendment.
- The Court also rejected the argument that ACCA's present-tense language ('involving … a controlled substance … as defined in section 102') pointed to current drug schedules. McNeill had already addressed identical reasoning: ACCA's use of the present tense was a stylistic drafting convention, not a command to look at what the law says at the time of federal sentencing.
- The Court rejected the petitioners' claim that any ambiguity should be resolved in their favor under the rule of lenity — the principle that genuinely unclear criminal statutes should be read to benefit defendants. The Court found that statutory text, context, and precedent together made Congress's meaning clear enough that lenity never came into play.
- The Court also dismissed practical objections — that the ruling would require courts to dig up old federal drug schedules or would produce absurd results for pre-1970 convictions — finding the administrative burden overstated and any apparent anomalies explainable by Congress's deliberate choice to anchor ACCA's penalties to the Controlled Substances Act's unified scheme, which only dates to 1970.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms McNeill v. United States (563 U. S. 816)
The Court reaffirmed that ACCA requires a backward-looking inquiry into predicate offenses under the law as it existed at that time.