A Look Back at the Supreme Court

Sometimes it is a good idea to look back at the latest term of the United States Supreme Court to see if a useful case slipped through the cracks or was underreported. There were two such cases last term: Whitfield v. United States^[1], and Small v. United States.^[2]

Whitfield
Whitfield presented the question whether a conviction for conspiracy to commit money laundering under 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h) requires proof of an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.^[3] The Court held that it does not because Congress, when it added the conspiracy component to section 1956, expressly left an overt-act requirement out of the law.^[4]

Small
Small presented the question of whether the language in 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) that says that it is

unlawful for any person … who has been convicted in any court, of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year … to … possess … any firearm,

applies “only to convictions entered in any domestic court or to foreign convictions as well.”^[5] The Supreme Court held that it applies only to domestic convictions.^[6] The defendant was convicted in a Japanese court for trying to smuggle weapons into Japan, and he was sentenced to five years in prison there.^[7] When he returned to the United States, he attempted to purchase a gun from a Pennsylvania gun dealer, and was subsequently charged under the “unlawful gun possession” statute.^[8] The Court held that the statute only applied to domestic convictions because

foreign convictions for crimes punishable by more than one year’s imprisonment may include a conviction for conduct that domestic law would permit, for example, for engaging in economic conduct that our society might encourage.^[9]

Therefore, the phrase “convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” “somewhat less reliably identifies dangerous individuals for the purposes of U.S. law where foreign convictions … are at issue.”^[10] The Court noted that if Congress wanted to include foreign convictions in the language of section 922, it was free to do so.^[11]

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[1] 125 S. Ct. 687 (2005) (03-1293; 03-1294).
[2] 125 S. Ct. 1752 (2005) (03-750).
[3] Whitfield at 689.
[4] Id. at 691.
[5] Small at 1754 (emphasis in original).
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] Id. at 1755-56.
[10] Id. at 1756.
[11] Id. at 1758.