Another “priors” case with some rule of lenity spicing

This new post at SCOTUSblog provides a bit more background on Burgess, the most sentencing-focused case in today’s big bunch of cert grants.  Here are the Questions Presented in the case:

1. Whether the term “felony drug offense” as used in federal statute requiring imposition of enhanced mandatory minimum 20 years’ imprisonment when drug offender has “prior conviction for a felony drug offense” must be read in pari materia with federal statutes defining both “felony” and “felony drug offense”, so as to require imposition of minimum 20-year sentence only if prior drug conviction as both punishable by more “than one year in prison and characterized as a felony by controlling law.

2. When the court finds that a criminal statute is ambiguous, must it then turn to rule of lenity to resolve ambiguity?

By my count, Burgess is the fourth case this Term dealing with how federal statutes define state prior offenses for purpose of certain sentencing enhancements.  Because these issues arise a lot, and because they can often generate circuit splits, I am not surprised these case often garner attention in the cert. pool.  However, with so many other issues competing for the Justices’ attention, I suspect a few SCOTUS watchers are not that excited that more than 5% of the argued docket this term is focused on these state priors issues.