Sessions v. Dimaya

Sessions v. Dimaya
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 17, 2017 Reargued October 2, 2017 Decided April 17, 2018
Full case name	Jefferson B. Sessions, III, Attorney General, Petitioner v. James Garcia Dimaya
Docket no.	15-1498
Citations	584 U.S. 148 (more) 138 S. Ct. 1204; 200 L. Ed. 2d 549; 2018 U.S. LEXIS 2497
Case history
Prior	Board of Immigration Appeals reversed sub nom., Dimaya v. Lynch, 803 F.3d 1110 (9th Cir. 2015); cert. granted sub. nom., Lynch v. Dimaya, 137 S. Ct. 31 (2016).
Holding
18 U.S.C. § 16(b), a statute defining certain "aggravated felonies", is unconstitutionally vague. Ninth Circuit affirmed.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Anthony Kennedy · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer Samuel Alito · Sonia Sotomayor Elena Kagan · Neil Gorsuch
Case opinions
Majority	Kagan, joined by Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Gorsuch (Parts I, III, IV–B, and V); Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor (Parts II and IV–A)
Concurrence	Gorsuch (in part)
Dissent	Roberts, joined by Kennedy, Thomas, Alito
Dissent	Thomas, joined by Kennedy, Alito (Parts I–C–2, II–A–1, and II–B)
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. V 18 U.S.C. § 16(b)

Sessions v. Dimaya, 584 U.S. 148 (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that 18 U.S.C. § 16(b),^[1] a statute defining certain "aggravated felonies" for immigration purposes, is unconstitutionally vague. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) classifies some categories of crimes as "aggravated felonies", and immigrants convicted of those crimes, including those legally present in the United States, are almost certain to be deported. Those categories include "crimes of violence", which are defined by the "elements clause" and the "residual clause". The Court struck down the "residual clause", which classified every felony that, "by its nature, involves a substantial risk" of "physical force against the person or property" as an aggravated felony.^[2][3][4][5]