U.S. Supreme Court rules misdemeanor counts as "violent felony".

• Date: 10 December 2007
• Author: Ziemer, David

Byline: David Ziemer

Because civil rights aren't lost upon conviction of a Wisconsin misdemeanor, they can't be restored, and those misdemeanor convictions must be counted as prior violent felonies under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), if the maximum penalty is three years.

The result may be anomalous, because more serious felony convictions can be exempted from the statute if civil rights are later restored to the defendant, but the result is not absurd.

In so holding, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg issued Dec. 4 affirms holdings of U.S. District Court Judge John C. Shabaz and the Seventh Circuit.

A Janesville man, James D. Logan pleaded guilty in the Western District of Wisconsin to being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1).

The maximum penalty is generally 10 years. However, if a defendant has three prior convictions for a violent felony, the minimum sentence is 15 years.

Logan had previous convictions in Wisconsin state court for misdemeanor batteries. Although misdemeanors, they counted as violent felonies under the ACCA, because Wisconsin's repeater statute provided a maximum penalty of three years at the time.

18 U.S.C. 921(a)(10) exempts from the statute, convictions which have been expunged, or those for which a defendant has been pardoned or had his civil rights restored.

Logan argued that his Wisconsin misdemeanor convictions did not...