U.S. v. Logan

Decision Date06 July 2006
Docket NumberNo. 05-4722.,05-4722.
Citation453 F.3d 804
PartiesUNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James D. LOGAN, Defendant-Appellant.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Rita M. Rumbelow (argued), Office of the United States Attorney, Madison, WI, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Richard A. Coad (argued), Federal Defender Services, Madison, WI, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before EASTERBROOK, ROVNER, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge.

This appeal presents a single question: whether a state conviction that did not result in a deprivation of civil rights can be a predicate offense under the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(1). That statute enhances the penalty for gun-toting felons whose prior convictions include at least three violent crimes or serious drug offenses. A conviction that a state classifies as a misdemeanor counts if the punishment can exceed two years. 18 U.S.C. §§ 921(a)(20)(B), 924(e)(2)(B). Logan has (in addition to one concededly qualifying drug felony conviction) three battery convictions that, though called misdemeanors in Wisconsin, carried maximum terms of three years' imprisonment and are treated as "violent felonies" by § 924(e). Nonetheless, Logan maintains, they should be disregarded because the last sentence of § 921(a)(20) excludes from the definition of "conviction" any offense that "has been expunged, or set aside or for which a person has been pardoned or has had civil rights restored . . . unless such pardon, expungement, or restoration of civil rights expressly provides that the person may not ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms."

Logan contends that a conviction that did not result in the loss of the rights to vote, hold public office, and serve on juries should be treated the same as a conviction following which those rights were terminated but later restored. This argument has the support of United States v. Indelicato, 97 F.3d 627 (1st Cir.1996). The district court held, however, that an offender whose civil rights have been neither diminished nor returned is not a person who "has had civil rights restored". That conclusion, which has the support of McGrath v. United States, 60 F.3d 1005 (2d Cir. 1995), led to a 180-month sentence, the minimum for any armed career criminal.

Compelled to choose between the holding of Indelicato and that of McGrath, we take the second circuit's part. The reason is simple. The word "restore" means to give back something that had been taken away. As McGrath remarked, "the `restoration' of a thing never lost or diminished is a definitional impossibility." 60 F.3d at 1007. Logan does not deny this, nor did the panel in Indelicato. That court recognized that it was going in the teeth of the statutory text but decided to do so because (a) it thought the statute silly—for why should someone whose civil rights were never taken away receive a higher federal sentence than a person who lost and then regained those rights?—and (b) no legislative history shows that Congress meant to distinguish between convicts who never lost civil rights and those who lost but regained them.

The second of these reasons is a makeweight. Statutes do not depend, for their force, on some statement in the legislative history along the lines of: "We really mean it!" See, e.g., Swain v. Pressley, 430 U.S. 372, 378-79, 97 S.Ct. 1224, 51 L.Ed.2d 411 (1977); Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., 446 U.S. 578, 591-92, 100 S.Ct. 1889, 64 L.Ed.2d 525 (1980). Today's Supreme Court uses legislative history only to resolve ambiguities in enacted texts. Even the plainest legislative history does not justify going against an unambiguous enactment. See Arlington Central School District v. Murphy, 126 S.Ct. 2455 (U.S. June 26, 2006), slip op. 11-12; Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Allapattah Services, Inc., ___ U.S. ___, ___-___, 125 S.Ct. 2611, 2625-27, 162 L.Ed.2d 502 (2005). (Nor does explicit legislative history justify the creation of a legal rule on a subject about which the statute is silent. See Brill v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., 427 F.3d 446 (7th Cir.2005).) And if legislative history directly addressing a subject does not free a court from enacted language, the absence of legislative history cannot do so. See Whitfield v. United States, 543 U.S. 209, 215-16, 125 S.Ct. 687, 160 L.Ed.2d 611 (2005).

As for Indelicato's first reason: this is a variant on the proposition that courts read statutes to make sense rather than nonsense. Absurd possibilities are ruled out. We call Indelicato's approach a variant of the anti-absurdity canon, however, because the first circuit did not mention it—and for good reason. The statute is not absurd as written. Its text parses; there is no linguistic garble. The canon is limited to solving problems in exposition, as opposed to the harshness that a well-written but poorly conceived statute may produce. See Jaskolski v. Daniels, 427 F.3d 456 (7th Cir.2005). Accord, Robbins v. Chronister, 435 F.3d 1238 (10th Cir.2006) (en banc). Otherwise judges would have entirely too much leeway to follow their own policy preferences by declaring that the legislative choice is harsh or jarring. See, e.g., Adrian Vermeule, Judging Under Uncertainty 57-59 (2006); John Manning, The Absurdity Doctrine, 116 Harv. L.Rev. 2387 (2003).

The Supreme Court insists that statutes be enforced as written even when they seem mistaken or pointless—for it is exactly then that the temptation to substitute one's judgment for the legislature's is strongest. See, e.g., Dodd v. United States, 545 U.S. 353, 125 S.Ct. 2478, 162 L.Ed.2d 343 (2005) (the statute of limitations for collateral attacks on criminal convictions must be enforced as written even though time may expire before a challenge becomes possible, and even though this possibility likely resulted from legislative oversight); Chapman v. United States, 500 U.S. 453, 111 S.Ct. 1919, 114 L.Ed.2d 524 (1991) (sentence for LSD must be based on the weight of the carrier medium as well as that of the drug, even though the carrier may be hundreds of times heavier and Congress may not have understood that LSD differs from other illegal drugs in this way). Laws are not "harsh" or "pointless" in any value-free framework; they seem harsh or pointless by reference to a given judge's beliefs about how things ought to work, which is why a claim of power to revise "harsh" or "pointless" laws elevates the judicial over the legislative branch and must be resisted. See Tyler v. Cain, 533 U.S. 656, 663 n. 5, 121 S.Ct. 2478, 150 L.Ed.2d 632 (2001).

Indelicato assumed that judges may correct a legislature's mistakes and oversights. It did not, however, identify any source of authority to do this—or for that matter explain why this statute is a botch. True enough, someone whose civil rights have not been revoked cannot have them restored. But restoration of civil rights is just one of three ways to erase a conviction from one's record for purposes of federal law. The other two—expungement and pardon—are as available to people who never lost their rights to vote, hold office, and serve on juries, as they are to other offenders.

Section 921(a)(20) acquired its current form in 1986 as a reaction to Dickerson v. New Banner Institute, Inc., 460 U.S. 103, 103 S.Ct. 986, 74 L.Ed.2d 845 (1983). Dickerson held that federal rather than state law defines a "conviction" for purposes of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922 and 924, and that under federal law a conviction supports recidivist enhancements even after it has been expunged by the rendering court. The 1986 legislation makes the effect of a conviction turn on state law—with the proviso that a pardon or restoration of rights removes the conviction for federal purposes, even if state law still would count it as a criminal conviction, "unless such pardon, expungement, or restoration of civil rights expressly provides that the person may not ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms." That's a federal anti-mousetrapping rule overlain on state law; a person told that his civil rights have been restored may assume that this means all rights unless he is informed that the right to vote (and so on) does not imply a right to carry firearms. See United States v. Erwin, 902 F.2d 510, 512-13 (7th Cir. 1990). Logan has not been misled by any state act that apparently freed him from the legal consequences of his battery convictions.

When Congress replaced Dickerson's uniform federal rule with a state definition of conviction, it ensured that similarly situated people would be treated differently— for states vary widely in which if any civil rights a convict loses and whether these rights are restored. Some states deprive almost all convicts of these rights but restore them automatically after a set period. See Caron v. United States, 524 U.S. 308, 313-14, 118 S.Ct. 2007, 141 L.Ed.2d 303 (1998) (agreeing with appellate consensus that restoration by operation of law has the same legal effect as restoration by act of personal clemency). Others take away fewer rights and make them harder to regain. The Office of the Pardon Attorney has compiled a list of these differences that conveys the flavor, though it may be out of date. U.S. Department of Justice, Civil disabilities of convicted felons: a state-by-state survey (1996), available at http://www.usdoj.gov/pardon/forms/state_survey.pdf. Vermont, for example, permits felons not only to vote from prison (they get absentee ballots) but also to hold office, but not to serve on juries; New Hampshire permits them to serve on juries but not to vote until after release (and restoration then is automatic); other states take away all three rights (plus the right to carry firearms) and don't restore them except via executive clemency. Most states would call the batteries of which Logan was convicted felonies and deprive the offender of civil rights (for in most states the dividing line between misdemeanor and felony is a maximum...

To continue reading

Request your trial
23 cases
  • Walker v. United States
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit
    • 1 Septiembre 2015
    ...taken away.’ ” Logan v. United States, 552 U.S. 23, 31, 128 S.Ct. 475, 169 L.Ed.2d 432 (2007) (quoting with approval United States v. Logan, 453 F.3d 804, 805 (7th Cir.2006) ); see also id. at n. 3 (reviewing dictionary definitions). Faithful application of these precedents, combined with r......
  • United States v. Louisiana
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Middle District of Louisiana
    • 26 Julio 2016
    ...much leeway to follow their own policy preferences by declaring that the legislative choice is harsh or jarring." United States v. Logan , 453 F.3d 804, 806 (7th Cir.2006) ; see also, e.g. , ADRIAN VERMEULE, JUDGING UNDER UNCERTAINTY 57-59 (2006); John Manning, The Absurdity Doctrine , 116 ......
  • United States v. Phillips
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit
    • 28 Noviembre 2022
    ...to revise ‘harsh’ or ‘pointless’ laws elevates the judicial over the legislative branch and must be resisted." United States v. Logan , 453 F.3d 804, 806 (7th Cir. 2006), aff'd , 552 U.S. 23, 128 S.Ct. 475, 169 L.Ed.2d 432 (2007) ; see also Crooks , 282 U.S. at 60, 51 S.Ct. 49.2.Even if we ......
  • Logan v. United States
    • United States
    • U.S. Supreme Court
    • 4 Diciembre 2007
    ...thereby making it more than conceivable that the Legislature, albeit an earlier one, meant to do the same in § 921(a)(20). Pp. 484 – 485. 453 F.3d 804, affirmed. GINSBURG, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.Richard A. Coad, Madison, WI, for petitioner.Daryl Joseffer, Washington......
  • Request a trial to view additional results
1 books & journal articles
  • Judges as honest agents.
    • United States
    • Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy Vol. 33 No. 3, June 2010
    • 22 Junio 2010
    ...from an omission or inadvertent error." (citation omitted)). (15.) See Illinois Brick, 431 U.S. at 758 (Brennan, J., dissenting). (16.) 453 F.3d 804 (7th Cir. 2006), aff'd, 552 U.S. 23 (2007). (17.) 18 U.S.C. [section] 922(g)(1) (2006). (18.) In the Supreme Court's opinion affirming the Sev......

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT