In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 10-3664

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

ALBERT D. BURNETT,

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Illinois.

No. 3:09CR30032-001-GPM—G. Patrick Murphy, Judge.

ARGUED MAY 4, 2011—DECIDED JUNE 6, 2011

Before EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge, and FLAUM and

SYKES, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge. Albert Burnett is a violent

man. He has been convicted five times of aggressive

felonies—murder, attempted murder (twice), aggravated

battery, and domestic battery—and several times of

other offenses, including twice possessing firearms

made unlawful by his status as a felon. Judges and

parole officials in Illinois have been remarkably lenient.
2 No. 10-3664

Burnett served less than four years of his sentence for

murder, a crime he committed while on parole from the

two convictions for attempted murder, before being

released again on parole. In April 2009 Burnett participated in a shootout in Alton, Illinois. This time he

was prosecuted in federal court, where he pleaded

guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm. 18 U.S.C.

§922(g)(1). The prosecutor asked the district court to

sentence Burnett as an armed career criminal under

§924(e), which carries a 15-year minimum term. This

subsection applies to a person who commits a firearms

offense and has three previous convictions for violent

felonies or serious drug offenses.

Burnett has five prior convictions of crimes that have

violence as an element of the offense. But the district

court concluded that four of the five do not count because,

when Burnett’s parole supervision on his murder and

aggravated battery convictions expired, state officials

sent him letters saying that his civil rights to vote and

hold office had been restored automatically under Illinois

law. These letters did not tell Burnett that Illinois

does not restore to felons the right to possess firearms. The omission of that information led us to hold

in Buchmeier v. United States, 581 F.3d 561 (7th Cir. 2009)

(en banc), that a letter identical to the two Illinois sent

Burnett meant that the conviction to which the letter

referred no longer counts as a violent felony. Buchmeier

interpreted §921(a)(20), which provides, among other

things, that “[w]hat constitutes a conviction of such a

crime shall be determined in accordance with the law of

the jurisdiction in which the proceedings were held. Any
No. 10-3664 3

conviction which has been expunged, or set aside or

for which a person has been pardoned or has had civil

rights restored shall not be considered a conviction

for purposes of this chapter, unless such pardon, expungement, or restoration of civil rights expressly

provides that the person may not ship, transport,

possess, or receive firearms.”

The United States contended in the district court that,

although Illinois twice sent Burnett the same letter it sent

Buchmeier, the record does not establish that Burnett

received or read the letter either time. Burnett could not

produce copies, and he does not remember whether

he received the letter (or read it, if he got it). Illinois

sends these letters by ordinary mail, so receipt could not

be documented by Burnett’s signature or that of a relative. (Illinois must have sent the letters to his mother’s

address, the only one it had on file for him.) Buchmeier

described §921(a)(20) as an anti-mousetrapping rule,

designed to ensure that persons who have been told that

all civil rights have been restored are not taken by

surprise when the statute books contain reservations

(such as a ban on possessing firearms) omitted from the

communication. 581 F.3d at 566–67. This implies, the

prosecutor contended, that only a person who can

show that he received, read, and understood a misleadingly incomplete communication from the state can

take advantage of the “unless” clause in §921(a)(20).

The district court concluded, however, that §921(a)(20)

establishes an objective rule—one that depends on the

content of the communication—rather than a subjective
4 No. 10-3664

rule that depends on the extent of a recipient’s

(mis)understanding. This knocked out the murder and

aggravated battery convictions. The court also concluded that the letter Burnett received when his parole

from the murder conviction expired applies to the two

earlier convictions for attempted murder as well. This

left only one qualifying conviction for a violent felony.

That is enough to support a felon-in-possession conviction under §922(g) but not enough for a recidivist enhancement. The district court sentenced Burnett to 120

months’ imprisonment, the statutory maximum under

§922(g)(1) but 60 months below the minimum term prescribed by the Armed Career Criminal Act. The United

States has appealed.

We agree with the district court that §921(a)(20) sets an

objective standard. Nothing in the statutory language

asks what a person believes. The statute asks only what

a document contains. If the document says that civil

rights have been restored but omits a firearms qualification, then the conviction no longer counts as a violent

felony. Buchmeier used the anti-mousetrapping language to summarize the reason why Congress wrote

§921(a)(20) to require the firearms reservation to be in

the communication—rather than, say, requiring the felon

to search the whole of state law to discover what rights

he enjoyed. But the reasons behind a statute differ from

the contents of a statute. Congress implemented its goal

by language that turns entirely on the content of the

communication. Buchmeier held that the effect of a communication does not depend on state law as a whole,

and we add today that the effect also does not depend
No. 10-3664 5

on whether the recipient reads or understands the communication. Section 921(a)(20) directs us to the four

corners of the document, and there we stop.

The prosecutor’s second argument is stronger, however.

The letters that the Illinois Department of Corrections

sent to Burnett begin by stating that the addressee completed his sentence (or his parole, if any) on a particular

date, and that on that date “your obligation to the Department ceases.” The letter then says that the rights

to vote and hold office under the Constitution of the

State of Illinois have been restored. The inclusion of a

date that ties the letter to a single sentence implies that

rights have been restored with respect to the convictions

underlying that sentence only. This would be clear if

Burnett had been convicted of two murders and had

been pardoned for only one; the other conviction

would remain, with whatever civil disabilities it carried.

We do not see why a letter should be treated differently. Illinois makes the restoration of (some) civil

rights automatic when a sentence has been fully served.

That is a conviction-by-conviction process, and a letter

telling the ex-prisoner about this logically also applies

conviction-by-conviction.

Burnett replies (and the district judge concluded) that

the date in the letter links it to all convictions being

served at one time, rather than to a particular conviction.

That is a possible reading, we suppose. The letter includes a date but does not mention the crime. It does

not say “your parole following your conviction for

murder expired on” a particular date. It says instead that
6 No. 10-3664

“you have completed the maximum of your sentence as

of” a given date. A person who had been serving concurrent sentences might read the singular “sentence” to

designate the whole custodial term, and then the antimousetrapping concern that we discussed in Buchmeier

implies that the letter covers all of the crimes that led to

the concurrent sentence. This understanding would be

consistent with Illinois law, too: the expiration of multiple

sentences on a single date automatically restores civil

rights with respect to all of those convictions. But that is

not remotely Burnett’s situation.

Burnett stabbed a man in the back on March 8, 1988, and

was convicted of attempted murder. He beat a man with

a pipe on May 9, 1988, and was convicted of a second

attempted murder. He was sentenced for both crimes

on August 18, 1988, to concurrent terms of six years’

imprisonment, from which he was paroled on March 17,

1992. He killed a man on July 8, 1992. His parole on the

two attempted-murder convictions was revoked that

October, placing him back in prison. He was later convicted of murder. In January 1994 his maximum imprisonment on revocation of parole ended; from then on

his custody was supported only by the sentence he received for the murder conviction. He was paroled from

the murder conviction in April 1997, and that term of

parole expired in April 1999. That’s when the Department of Corrections sent him the letter saying that his

civil rights had been restored.

As an objective matter, a letter that refers to the expiration of a sentence in April 1999 must have been dealing
No. 10-3664 7

with the murder conviction alone; by then the end of

Burnett’s custody following the revocation of his parole

lay more than five years in the past. It may well be

that Illinois refrained from sending Burnett letters in

January 1994 about his attempted-murder convictions

because the ongoing custody for the murder conviction

meant that he could not vote or hold public office. But

it does not matter why Illinois failed to send letters in

January 1994; this appeal concerns the effect of the letter

it did send in April 1999. That letter, linked as it was to

the expiration of his parole on the murder conviction,

has an effect limited to the murder conviction. Likewise

the letter that Burnett received in 2002, when his sentence for aggravated battery expired, covers that crime

alone.

This means that Burnett has three countable convictions for violent felonies: two attempted murders and one

domestic battery. He must be resentenced under §924(e)

as an armed career criminal.

We cannot close, however, without remarking on

the continuing difficulties that Illinois seems to be experiencing in informing its ex-prisoners which civil

rights they hold, and which they do not. Buchmeier discusses several of the problems in the letter that the Department of Corrections used from the early 1990s

through March 2004, the form sent to both Buchmeier

and Burnett. That form misstates the civil rights that

have been restored (despite what the letter says, the

right to vote is not automatically restored to ex-prisoners),

fails to alert ex-prisoners that they cannot run for mayor
8 No. 10-3664

and other offices not created directly by the Constitution

of Illinois, and omits the vital firearms reservation. As

this case shows, the form letter also is ambiguous about

the scope of its application. By including a date, but

omitting any mention of which convictions the letter

covers, the communication could be read to restore civil

rights for all former felonies—and, though we have

held that it does not have this effect, it does restore civil

rights for all crimes that led to concurrent sentences

ending on the date specified in the letter. (That was the

situation in Buchmeier itself.)

Illinois changed its form letter in March 2004, and it sent

the modified form to Burnett when his supervision for

domestic battery ended. The revised letter omitted any

reference to the right to vote. This meant that the letter

did not tell the ex-prisoner that he now enjoys the “big

three” civil rights (to vote, hold public office, and serve

on juries), which took it outside the scope of §921(a)(20).

As we discuss in Buchmeier, Illinois does not deprive

felons of the right to serve on juries, so only voting

and public offices can be restored or withheld. 581 F.3d

at 564. Unless a communication says that both of those

rights have been restored, however, omission of a firearms reservation does not cancel the conviction’s status

as a violent felony. The March 2004 form’s omission of

any reference to voting must be why Burnett has not

denied that his conviction for domestic battery is a

violent felony. Still, the 2004 version remained misleading because it did not distinguish constitutional from

statutory offices, did not contain a firearms reservation,

and did not say which convictions it covered.
No. 10-3664 9

After this court decided Buchmeier, Illinois altered the

letter again. Since September 2009 the Department of

Corrections has sent letters that do not refer to the right

to vote and do tell ex-prisoners that they are forbidden

to possess firearms. That’s a big improvement—but

problems remain, because even the September 2009

version of the form letter does not distinguish constitutional from statutory offices. Worse, it begins by

referring to the date on which a term of confinement or

supervision ended but does not specify which conviction or convictions it covers. Illinois can and should do

better to notify ex-prisoners which civil rights have

been restored on which convictions, while ensuring that

they know that their convictions disqualify them from

possessing firearms.

REVERSED AND REMANDED FOR RESENTENCING

6-6-11