Beecham v. United States, 511 U.S. 368, 6 (1994)

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Cite as: 511 U. S. 368 (1994)

Opinion of the Court

Geyler, 932 F. 2d, at 1333.* This reasoning assumes that Congress intended felons convicted by all jurisdictions to have access to all the procedures (pardon, expungement, set-aside, and civil rights restoration) specified in the exemption clause; but nothing in § 921(a)(20) supports the assumption on which this reasoning is based. Many jurisdictions have no procedure for restoring civil rights. See Apps. A and B to Brief for Petitioners (indicating that at least 11 States—Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia suspend felons' civil rights but provide no procedure for restoring them); see, e. g., Mo. Rev. Stat. § 561.026 (1979 and Supp. 1994); United States v. Thomas, 991 F. 2d 206, 213-214 (CA5) (Texas law), cert. denied, 510 U. S. 1014 (1993). However one reads the statutory scheme—as looking to the law of the convicting jurisdiction, or to the law of the State in which the prior conduct took place, or to the law of the State in which the felon now lives or has at one time lived—people in some jurisdictions would have options open to them that people in other jurisdictions may lack. Under our reading of the statute, a person convicted in federal court is no worse off than a person convicted in a court of a State that does not restore civil rights.

*We express no opinion on whether a federal felon cannot have his civil rights restored under federal law. This is a complicated question, one which involves the interpretation of the federal law relating to federal civil rights, see U. S. Const., Art. I, § 2, cl. 1 (right to vote for Representatives); U. S. Const., Amdt. XVII (right to vote for Senators); 28 U. S. C. § 1865 (right to serve on a jury); consideration of the possible relevance of 18 U. S. C. § 925(c) (1988 ed., Supp. IV), which allows the Secretary of the Treasury to grant relief from the disability imposed by § 922(g); and the determination whether civil rights must be restored by an affirmative act of a Government official, see United States v. Ramos, 961 F. 2d 1003, 1008 (CA1), cert. denied, 506 U. S. 934 (1992), or whether they may be restored automatically by operation of law, see United States v. Hall, 20 F. 3d 1066 (CA10 1994). We do not address these matters today.

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