WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday struck a section of a 1980s law that allows prosecutors to seek stiffer penalties for certain violent crimes involving firearms, finding that the provision does not give clear “fair warning” to would-be offenders.
“A vague law is no law at all,” wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was joined by the court’s liberal justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
The 5-4 ruling came on what was originally scheduled to be the last day of the Supreme Court’s term. But the justices have not delivered opinions in eight cases argued earlier in the term, including what role federal courts play in policing partisan gerrymandering, and whether the Trump administration may add a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census form sent to every household.
The court will be in session again Wednesday.
Apart from the gun-crime decision Monday, the justices made it harder for the public and news media organizations to obtain some commercial information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The court also announced that it would hear a case next term regarding what health-care insurers say was an underpayment to them under the Affordable Care Act.
