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Page Number: 36

18 

JOHNSON v. UNITED STATES 

THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment 

___,  ___  (2011)  (THOMAS,  J.,  dissenting)  (slip  op.,  at  2).
Although Murray’s Lessee stated the contrary, 18 How., at
276, a number of scholars and jurists have concluded that
“considerable  historical  evidence  supports  the  position 
that  ‘due  process  of  law’  was  a  separation-of-powers  con-
cept designed as a safeguard against unlicensed executive
action,  forbidding  only  deprivations  not  authorized  by
legislation  or  common  law.”    D.  Currie,  The  Constitution 
in  the  Supreme  Court:  The  First  Hundred  Years  1789–
1888, p. 272 (1985); see also, e.g., In re Winship, 397 U. S. 
358,  378–382  (1970)  (Black,  J.,  dissenting).  Others  have 
disagreed.  See, e.g., Chapman & McConnell, Due Process
as Separation of Powers, 121 Yale L. J. 1672, 1679 (2012) 
(arguing  that,  as  originally  understood,  “the  principle  of 
due  process”  required,  among  other  things,  that  “statutes
that  purported  to  empower  the  other  branches  to  deprive
persons of rights without adequate procedural guarantees
[be] subject to judicial review”).

I  need  not  choose  between  these  two  understandings  of 
“due process of law” in this case.  JUSTICE ALITO explains
why the majority’s decision is wrong even under our prec-
edents.  See post, at 13–17 (dissenting opinion).  And more 
generally,  I  adhere  to  the  view  that  “ ‘[i]f  any  fool  would
know that a particular category of conduct would be with-
in the reach of the statute, if there is an unmistakable core 
that  a  reasonable  person  would  know  is  forbidden  by  the
law,  the  enactment  is  not  unconstitutional  on  its  face,’ ” 
Morales, supra, at 112 (THOMAS, J., dissenting), and there 
is  no  question  that  ACCA’s  residual  clause  meets  that
description, see ante, at 10 (agreeing with the Government 
that  “there  will  be  straightforward  cases  under  the  resid-
ual clause”). 

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I have no love for our residual clause jurisprudence: As I
observed  when  we  first  got  into  this  business,  the  Sixth 

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