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Page Number: 14

12 

JOHNSON v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

statute to be vague, it is vague in all its applications (and
never  mind  the  reality).    If  the  existence  of  some  clearly 
unreasonable  rates  would  not  save  the  law  in  L.  Cohen 
Grocery,  why  should  the  existence  of  some  clearly  risky 
crimes save the residual clause? 

The  Government  and  the  dissent  next  point  out  that 
dozens  of  federal  and  state  criminal  laws  use  terms  like 
“substantial  risk,”  “grave  risk,”  and  “unreasonable  risk,” 
suggesting that to hold the residual clause unconstitutional
is  to  place  these  provisions  in  constitutional  doubt.    See 
post,  at  7–8.  Not  at  all.    Almost  none  of  the  cited  laws 
links a phrase such as “substantial risk” to a confusing list 
of  examples.  “The  phrase  ‘shades  of  red,’  standing  alone,
does  not  generate  confusion  or  unpredictability;  but  the
phrase  ‘fire-engine  red,  light  pink,  maroon,  navy  blue,  or 
colors that otherwise involve shades of red’ assuredly does 
so.”  James, 550 U. S., at 230, n. 7 (SCALIA, J., dissenting).
More  importantly,  almost  all  of  the  cited  laws  require 
gauging  the  riskiness  of  conduct  in  which  an  individual
defendant engages on a particular occasion.  As a general
matter, we do not doubt the constitutionality of laws that
call  for  the  application  of  a  qualitative  standard  such  as
“substantial risk” to real-world conduct; “the law is full of 
instances  where  a  man’s  fate  depends  on  his  estimating 
rightly . . . some matter of degree,” Nash v. United States, 
229  U. S.  373,  377  (1913).    The  residual  clause,  however, 
requires  application  of  the  “serious  potential  risk”  stand­
ard  to  an  idealized  ordinary  case  of  the  crime.    Because 
“the elements necessary to determine the imaginary ideal 
are  uncertain  both  in  nature  and  degree  of  effect,”  this
abstract  inquiry  offers  significantly  less  predictability
than one “[t]hat deals with the actual, not with an imagi­
nary  condition  other  than  the  facts.”    International  Har-
vester  Co.  of  America  v.  Kentucky,  234  U. S.  216,  223 
(1914).

Finally, the dissent urges us to save the residual clause