Supreme Court of the United States · 2006-12-05
Case and law context
Role: comparator; posture: immigration removal (civil); BIA and CA8 held a South Dakota felony conviction for aiding and abetting cocaine possession an INA "aggravated felony" (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(43)(B), which borrows the 924(c)(2) definition of "drug trafficking crime"); certiorari by the noncitizen; reversed and remanded. No 924(c) prosecution is involved; result: claimant-lost; claim: (c)(2)
Instances and excluded annotation blocks
| Case | Element | Holding and scope | Variant | Exact source quotations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| /us/549/0047-01 — Supreme Court of the United States · 2006 | Enumerated federal drug felony | not Excluded from merits counts comparator / merits basis: law; claim: (c)(2); count: South Dakota conviction, S.D. Codified Laws 22-42-5 / 22-3-3 (aiding and abetting possession of cocaine); theory: whether a state felony that the CSA punishes only as a misdemeanor is a "felony punishable under the Controlled Substances Act"; subject: count=South Dakota conviction, S.D. Codified Laws 22-42-5 / 22-3-3 (aiding and abetting possession of cocaine); theory=whether a state felony that the CSA punishes only as a misdemeanor is a "felony punishable under the Controlled Substances Act" Construction of the (c)(2) definition in its borrowed INA setting: "felony punishable under the CSA" means punishable AS A FELONY under the CSA (more than one year), whatever the State calls it. Simple possession is a federal misdemeanor under 21 U.S.C. 844(a), so the state conviction is not a "drug trafficking crime". Nothing is found about any firearm conduct; the block says what kind of offense can serve as a 924(c) drug predicate. Federal possession felonies (cocaine base over five grams, recidivist possession) do qualify. | csa/state-felony-but-federal-misdemeanor-possession | In 1997, he was arrested on state charges in South Dakota, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting another person’s possession of cocaine, and was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/us_549.jsonl#/us/549/0047-01; Unicode character offsets [2239:2422] (end exclusive); SHA-256 c5a4efdff6ab039d0f2e96dc61370983f283212699d67d060f5b4e290b367fb1.Commerce, however, was no part of Lopez’s South Dakota offense of helping someone else to possess, and certainly it is no element of simple possession, with which the State equates that crime.Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/us_549.jsonl#/us/549/0047-01; Unicode character offsets [6650:6842] (end exclusive); SHA-256 c5a4efdff6ab039d0f2e96dc61370983f283212699d67d060f5b4e290b367fb1.Yet the Government admits it has never begun a prosecution under 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(1)(A) where the underlying “drug trafficking crime” was a state felony but a federal misdemeanor.Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/us_549.jsonl#/us/549/0047-01; Unicode character offsets [12180:12363] (end exclusive); SHA-256 c5a4efdff6ab039d0f2e96dc61370983f283212699d67d060f5b4e290b367fb1.Unless a state offense is punishable as a federal felony it does not count.Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/us_549.jsonl#/us/549/0047-01; Unicode character offsets [9019:9094] (end exclusive); SHA-256 c5a4efdff6ab039d0f2e96dc61370983f283212699d67d060f5b4e290b367fb1.for purposes of § 924(c)(2) the crimes the CSA defines as “felonies” are those crimes to which it assigns a punishment exceeding one year’s imprisonment.Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/us_549.jsonl#/us/549/0047-01; Unicode character offsets [20029:20182] (end exclusive); SHA-256 c5a4efdff6ab039d0f2e96dc61370983f283212699d67d060f5b4e290b367fb1.In sum, we hold that a state offense constitutes a “felony punishable under the Controlled Substances Act” only if it proscribes conduct punishable as a felony under that federal law.Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/us_549.jsonl#/us/549/0047-01; Unicode character offsets [16281:16464] (end exclusive); SHA-256 c5a4efdff6ab039d0f2e96dc61370983f283212699d67d060f5b4e290b367fb1. |
| /us/549/0047-01 — Supreme Court of the United States · 2006 | Enumerated federal drug felony | satisfied Excluded from merits counts comparator / dissent basis: law; claim: (c)(2); count: South Dakota conviction; opinion: Thomas, J., dissenting; subject: count=South Dakota conviction; opinion=Thomas, J., dissenting Dissent reads the definition as two separate requirements (a felony under state or federal law; conduct punishable at all under the CSA) and treats the "may be prosecuted in a court of the United States" clause of (c)(1)(A) as the only federal-crime limit. | csa/state-felony-but-federal-misdemeanor-possession | Accordingly, by the plain terms of § 924(c)(2), conduct prohibited by the CSA may qualify as a “drug trafficking crime” if under either federal law or state law the conduct is punishable by more than one year of imprisonment.Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/us_549.jsonl#/us/549/0047-01; Unicode character offsets [25580:25805] (end exclusive); SHA-256 c5a4efdff6ab039d0f2e96dc61370983f283212699d67d060f5b4e290b367fb1.Lopez’s state felony offense qualifies as a “drug trafficking crime” as defined in § 924(c)(2).Source: docroot/ir/caselaw/us_549.jsonl#/us/549/0047-01; Unicode character offsets [23550:23645] (end exclusive); SHA-256 c5a4efdff6ab039d0f2e96dc61370983f283212699d67d060f5b4e290b367fb1. |