Justices Parse ‘Occasion’ Meaning in Career-Criminal Appeal (1)

The Supreme Court strained to answer what Justice Samuel Alito called a “nearly impossible question,” as the justices tried to figure out what it means for crimes to be “committed on occasions different from one another.”

Hearing arguments Monday on the first day of the new term, the high court confronted its latest case about the Armed Career Criminal Act. The federal law that perennially perplexes the justices imposes 15-year mandatory minimums on gun offenders with at least three prior violent felonies. The question of what counts as a prior conviction that triggers the act has been the source of ...