Interpreting Begay After Sykes: Why Reckless Offenses Should Be Eligible To Qualify as Violent Felonies Under the ACCA’s Residual Clause

Passed as part of the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e) subjects felons in possession of firearms to a strict mandatory minimum sentence if the offenders have three prior state or federal convictions that qualify as serious drug offenses or violent felonies. A crime qualifies as a violent felony under the residual clause, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), if it is one of the enumerated offenses of burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another. Current federal circuit court interpretations of the Supreme Court\u27s decisions in Begay v. United States and Sykes v. United States exclude both crimes with lesser mens rea—recklessness or negligence—and strict-liability crimes from qualifying under the residual clause. This Note proposes that some reckless crimes, like drive-by shooting, would qualify if compared to their closest analogs among the enumerated offenses for purposes of determining similarity in kind, a requirement under Sykes and Begay. This proposed solution would bring some reckless offenses within the scope of the residual clause, allowing for increased, though narrow, targeting of the most dangerous felons: the armed career criminals

Genome-wide meta-analysis associates HLA-DQA1/DRB1 and LPA and lifestyle factors with human longevity

Genomic analysis of longevity offers the potential to illuminate the biology of human aging. Here, using genome-wide association meta-analysis of 606,059 parents' survival, we discover two regions associated with longevity (HLA-DQA1/DRB1 and LPA). We also validate previous suggestions that APOE, CHRNA3/5, CDKN2A/B, SH2B3 and FOXO3A influence longevity. Next we show that giving up smoking, educational attainment, openness to new experience and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels are most positively genetically correlated with lifespan while susceptibility to coronary artery disease (CAD), cigarettes smoked per day, lung cancer, insulin resistance and body fat are most negatively correlated. We suggest that the effect of education on lifespan is principally mediated through smoking while the effect of obesity appears to act via CAD. Using instrumental variables, we suggest that an increase of one body mass index unit reduces lifespan by 7 months while 1 year of education adds 11 months to expected lifespan

Hemochromatosis risk genotype is not associated with colorectal cancer or age at its diagnosis

Homozygotes for the higher penetrance hemochromatosis risk allele, HFE c.845G>A (p.Cys282Tyr, or C282Y), have been reported to be at a 2- to 3-fold increased risk for colorectal cancer (CRC). These results have been reported for small sample size studies with no information about age at diagnosis for CRC. An association with age at diagnosis might alter CRC screening recommendations. We analyzed two large European ancestry datasets to assess the association of HFE genotype with CRC risk and age at CRC diagnosis. The first dataset included 59,733 CRC or advanced adenoma cases and 72,351 controls from a CRC epidemiological study consortium. The second dataset included 13,564 self-reported CRC cases and 2,880,218 controls from the personal genetics company, 23andMe. No association of the common hereditary hemochromatosis (HH) risk genotype and CRC was found in either dataset. The odds ratios (ORs) for the association of CRC and HFE C282Y homozygosity were 1.08 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.91-1.29; p = 0.4) and 1.01 (95% CI, 0.78-1.31, p = 0.9) in the two cohorts, respectively. Age at CRC diagnosis also did not differ by HFE C282Y/C282Y genotype in either dataset. These results indicate no increased CRC risk in individuals with HH genotypes and suggest that persons with HH risk genotypes can follow population screening recommendations for CRC