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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 12–1371
_________________
UNITED STATES, PETITIONER v. JAMES ALVIN
CASTLEMAN
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the sixth circuit
[March 26, 2013]
Justice Sotomayor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Recognizing that
“[f]irearms and domestic strife are a potentially deadly
combination,” United States v. Hayes, 555 U. S. 415, 427
(2009) , Congress forbade the possession of firearms by anyone
convicted of “a misdemeanor crime of domestic
violence.” 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(9). The
respondent, James Alvin Castleman, pleaded guilty to the
misdemeanor offense of having “intentionally or knowingly
cause[d] bodily injury to” the mother of his child. App.27.
The question before us is whether this conviction qualifies as
“a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.” We hold
that it does.
I
A
This country
witnesses more than a million acts of domestic violence, and
hundreds of deaths from domestic violence, each year.[
1] See Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U. S.
103, 117–118 (2006). Domestic violence often escalates in
severity over time, see Brief for Major Cities Chiefs Association
et al. as Amici Curiae 13–15; Brief for National Network
to End Domestic Violence et al. as Amici Curiae 9–12,
and the presence of a firearm increases the likelihood that it will
escalate to homicide, see id., at 14–15; Campbell
et al., Assessing Risk Factors for Intimate Partner Homicide,
DOJ, Nat. Institute of Justice J., No. 250, p. 16 (Nov. 2003)
(“When a gun was in the house, an abused woman was 6 times
more likely than other abused women to be killed”).
“[A]ll too often,” as one Senator noted during the
debate over §922(g)(9), “the only difference between a
battered woman and a dead woman is the presence of a gun.”
142 Cong. Rec. 22986 (1996) (statement of Sen. Wellstone).
Congress enacted
§922(g)(9), in light of these sobering facts, to
“ ‘close [a] dangerous
loophole’ ” in the gun control laws: While felons
had long been barred from possessing guns, many perpetrators of
domestic violence are convicted only of misdemeanors. Hayes, 555 U.
S., at 418, 426. Section 922(g)(9) provides, as relevant, that any
person “who has been convicted . . . of a
misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” may not
“possess in or affecting commerc[e] any firearm or
ammunition.” With exceptions that do not apply here, the
statute defines a “misdemeanor crime of domestic
violence” as
“an offense that . . . (i)
is a misdemeanor under Fed-eral, State, or Tribal law; and (ii)
has, as an element, the use or attempted use of physical force, or
the threatened use of a deadly weapon, committed by a current or
former spouse, parent, or guardian of the victim, by a person with
whom the victim shares a child in common, by a person who is
cohabiting with or has cohabited with the victim as a spouse,
parent, or guardian, or by a person similarly situated toa spouse,
parent, or guardian of the victim.” §921(a)(33)(A).
This case concerns the meaning of one phrase in
this definition: “the use . . . of physical
force.”
B
In 2001, Castleman
was charged in a Tennessee court with having “intentionally
or knowingly cause[d] bodily injury to” the mother of his
child, in violation of Tenn. Code Ann.
§39–13–111(b) (Supp. 2002). App. 27. He pleaded
guilty. Id., at 29.
In 2008, federal
authorities learned that Castleman was selling firearms on the
black market. A grand jury in the Western District of Tennessee
indicted him on two counts of violating §922(g)(9) and on
other charges not relevant here. Id., at 13–16.
Castleman moved to
dismiss the §922(g)(9) charges, arguing that his Tennessee
conviction did not qualify as a “misdemeanor crime of
domestic violence” because it did not “ha[ve], as an
element, the use . . . of physical force,”
§921(a)(33)(A)(ii). The District Court agreed, on the the-ory
that “the ‘use of physical force’ for
§922(g)(9) purposes” must entail “violent contact
with the victim.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 40a. The court held
that a conviction under the relevant Tennessee statute cannot
qualify as a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence”
because one can cause bodily injury without “violent
contact”—for example, by “deceiving [the victim]
into drinking a poisoned beverage.” Id., at 41a.
A divided panel of the
U. S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed, by
different reasoning. 695 F. 3d 582 (2012). The majority held
that the degree of physical force required by
§921(a)(33)(A)(ii) is the same as required by
§924(e)(2)(B)(i), which defines “violent felony.”
Id., at 587. Applying our decision in Johnson v. United States, 559
U. S. 133 (2010) , which held that §924(e)(2)(B)(i)
re-quires “violent force,” id., at 140, the majority
held that Castleman’s conviction did not qualify as a
“misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” because
Castleman could have been convicted for “caus[ing] a slight,
nonserious physical injury with conduct that cannot be described as
violent.” 695 F. 3d, at 590. Judge McKeague dissented,
arguing both that the majority erred in extending Johnson’s
definition of a “violent felony” to the context of a
“misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” and that, in
any event, Castle-man’s conviction satisfied the Johnson
standard. Id., at 593–597.
The Sixth
Circuit’s decision deepened a split of author-ity among the
Courts of Appeals. Compare, e.g., United States v. Nason, 269
F. 3d 10, 18 (CA1 2001) (§922(g)(9) “encompass[es]
crimes characterized by the application of any physical
force”), with United States v. Belless, 338 F. 3d 1063,
1068 (CA9 2003) (§922(g)(9) covers only “the violent use
of force”). We granted certiorari to resolve this split, 570
U. S. ___ (2013), and now reverse the Sixth Cir-cuit’s
judgment.
II
A
“It is a
settled principle of interpretation that, absent other indication,
‘Congress intends to incorporate the well-settled meaning of
the common-law terms it uses.’ ” Sekhar v. United
States, 570 U. S. ___, ___ (2013) (slip op., at 3). Seeing no
“other indication” here, we hold that Congress
incorporated the common-law meaning of
“force”—namely, offensive touching—in
§921(a)(33)(A)’s definition of a “mis-demeanor
crime of domestic violence.”
Johnson resolves this
case in the Government’s favor—not, as the Sixth
Circuit held, in Castleman’s. In Johnson, we considered
whether a battery conviction was a “violent felony”
under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), §924(e)(1). As
here, ACCA defines such a crime as one that “has as an
element the use . . . of physical force,”
§924(e)(2)(B)(i). We began by observing that at common law,
the element of force in the crime of battery was “satisfied
by even the slightest offensive touching.” 559 U. S., at
139 (citing 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England
120 (1768)).[
2] And we
recognized the general rule that “a common-law term of art
should be given its established common-law meaning,” except
“where that meaning does not fit.” 559 U. S., at
139. We declined to read the common-law meaning of
“force” into ACCA’s definition of a
“violent felony,” because we found it a “comical
misfit with the defined term.” Id., at 145; see United States
v. Stevens, 559 U. S. 460, 474 (2010) (“[A]n unclear
definitional phrase may take meaning from the term to be
defined”). In defining a “ ‘violent
felony,’ ” we held, “the phrase
‘physical force’ ” must “mea[n]
violent force.” Johnson, 559 U. S., at 140. But here,
the common-law meaning of “force” fits perfectly: The
very reasons we gave for rejecting that meaning in defining a
“violent felony” are reasons to embrace it in defining
a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.”[
3]
First, because
perpetrators of domestic violence are “routinely prosecuted
under generally applicable assault or battery laws,” Hayes,
555 U. S., at 427, it makes sense for Congress to have
classified as a “misdemeanor crime of domestic
violence” the type of conduct that supports a common-law
battery conviction. Whereas it was “unlikely” that
Congress meant to incorporate in the definition of a
“ ‘violent felony’ a phrase that the common
law gave peculiar meaning only in its definition of a
misdemeanor,” Johnson, 559 U. S., at 141, it is likely
that Congress meant to incorporate that misdemeanor-specific
meaning of “force” in defining a “misdemeanor
crime of domestic violence.”
Second, whereas the
word “violent” or “violence” standing alone
“connotes a substantial degree of force,” id., at
140,[
4] that is not true of
“domestic violence.” “Domestic violence” is
not merely a type of “violence”; it is a term of art
encompassing acts that one might not characterize as
“violent” in a nondomestic context. See Brief for
National Network to End Domestic Violence et al. as Amici
Curiae 4–9; DOJ, Office on Violence Against Women, Domestic
Violence (defining physical forms of domestic violence to include
“[h]itting, slapping, shoving, grabbing, pinching, biting,
[and] hair pulling”), online at
http://www.ovw.usdoj.gov/domviolence.htm.[
5] Indeed, “most physical assaults committed
against women and men by intimates are relatively minor and consist
of pushing, grabbing, shoving, slapping, and hitting.” DOJ,
P. Tjaden & N. Thoennes, Extent, Nature and Consequences of
Intimate Partner Violence 11 (2000).
Minor uses of force may
not constitute “violence” in the generic sense. For
example, in an opinion that we cited with approval in Johnson, the
Seventh Circuit noted that it was “hard to describe
. . . as ‘violence’ ” “a
squeeze of the arm [that] causes a bruise.” Flores v.
Ashcroft, 350 F. 3d 666, 670 (2003). But an act of this nature
is easy to describe as “domestic violence,” when the
accumulation of such acts over time can subject one intimate
partner to the other’s control. If a seemingly minor act like
this draws the attention of authorities and leads to a successful
prosecution for a misdemeanor offense, it does not offend common
sense or the English language to characterize the resulting
conviction as a “misdemeanor crime of domestic
violence.”
Justice Scalia’s
concurrence discounts our reference to social-science definitions
of “domestic violence,” including those used by the
organizations most directly engaged with the problem and thus most
aware of its dimensions. See post, at 8–11. It is important
to keep in mind, how-ever, that the operative phrase we are
construing is not “domestic violence”; it is
“physical force.” §921(a)(33)(A). “Physical
force” has a presumptive common-law meaning, and the question
is simply whether that presumptive meaning makes sense in defining
a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.”[
6]
A third reason for
distinguishing Johnson’s definition of “physical
force” is that unlike in Johnson—where a determination
that the defendant’s crime was a “violent felony”
would have classified him as an “armed career
criminal”—the statute here groups those convicted of
“misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence” with others
whose conduct does not warrant such a designation. Section 922(g)
bars gun possession by anyone “addicted to any controlled
substance,” §922(g)(3); by most people who have
“been admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant
visa,” §922(g)(5)(B); by anyone who has renounced United
States citizenship, §922(g)(7); and by anyone subject to a
domestic restraining order, §922(g)(8). Whereas we have
hesitated (as in Johnson) to apply the Armed Career Criminal Act to
“crimes which, though dangerous, are not typically committed
by those whom one normally labels ‘armed career
criminals,’ ” Begay v. United States, 553
U. S. 137, 146 (2008) , we see no anomaly in grouping domestic
abusers convicted of generic assault or battery offenses together
with the others whom §922(g) disqualifies from gun
ownership.
An additional reason to
read the statute as we do is that a contrary reading would have
rendered §922(g)(9) inoperative in many States at the time of
its enactment. The “assault or battery laws” under
which “domestic abusers were . . . routinely
prosecuted” when Congress enacted §922(g)(9), and under
which many are still prosecuted today, Hayes, 555 U. S., at
427, fall generally into two categories: those that prohibit both
offensive touching and the causation of bodily injury, and those
that prohibit only the latter. See Brief for United States
36–38. Whether or not the causation of bodily injury
necessarily entails violent force—a question we do not
reach—mere offensive touching does not. See Johnson, 559
U. S., at 139–140. So if offensive touching did not
constitute “force” under §921(a)(33)(A), then
§922(g)(9) would have been ineffec-tual in at least 10
States—home to nearly thirty percent of the Nation’s
population[
7]—at the time
of its enactment. See post, at 6, and n. 5 (Scalia, J., concurring
in part and concurring in judgment) (acknowledging that
§922(g)(9) would have been inapplicable in California and nine
other States if it did not encompass offensive touching); App. to
Brief for United States 10a–16a (listing statutes prohibiting
both offensive touching and the causation of bodily injury, only
some of which are divisible); cf. Hayes, 555 U. S., at 427
(rejecting an interpretation under which Ҥ922(g)(9)
would have been ‘a dead letter’ in some two-thirds of
the States from the very moment of its enactment”).
In sum, Johnson
requires that we attribute the common-law meaning of
“force” to §921(a)(33)(A)’s definition of a
“misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” as an offense
that “has, as an element, the use or attempted useof physical
force.” We therefore hold that the requirement of
“physical force” is satisfied, for purposes of
§922(g)(9), by the degree of force that supports a common-law
battery conviction.
B
Applying this
definition of “physical force,” we conclude that
Castleman’s conviction qualifies as a “misdemeanor
crime of domestic violence.” In doing so, we follow the
analytic approach of Taylor v. United States, 495 U. S. 575
(1990) , and Shepard v. United States, 544 U. S. 13 (2005) .
We begin with Taylor’s categorical approach, under which we
look to the statute of Castleman’s conviction to determine
whether that conviction necessarily “ha[d], as an element,
the use or attempted use of physical force, or the threatened use
of a deadly weapon,” §921(a)(33)(A).
The Tennessee statute
under which Castleman was convicted made it a crime to
“commi[t] an assault . . . against” a
“family or household member”—in Castleman’s
case, the mother of his child. Tenn. Code Ann.
§39–13–111(b). A provision incorporated by
reference, §39–13–101, defined three types of
assault: “(1) [i]ntentionally, knowingly or recklessly
caus[ing] bodily injury to another; (2) [i]ntentionally or
knowingly caus[ing] another to reasonably fear imminent bodily
injury; or (3) [i]ntentionally or knowingly caus[ing] physical
contact with another” in a manner that a “reasonable
person would regard . . . as extremely offensive or
provocative.” §39–13–101(a).
It does not appear that
every type of assault defined by §39–13–101
necessarily involves “the use or attempted use of physical
force, or the threatened use of a deadly weapon,”
§921(a)(33)(A). A threat under §39–13–101(2)
maynot necessarily involve a deadly weapon, and the merely reckless
causation of bodily injury under §39–13–101(1) may
not be a “use” of force.[
8]
But we need not decide
whether a domestic assault conviction in Tennessee categorically
constitutes a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence,”
because the parties do not contest that §39–13–101
is a “ ‘divisible statute,’ ”
Descamps v. United States, 570 U. S. ___, ___ (2013) (slip
op., at 1). We may accordingly apply the modified categorical
approach, consulting the indictment to which Castleman pleaded
guilty in order to determine whether his conviction did entail the
elements necessary to constitute the generic federal offense. Id.,
at ___ (slip op., at 1–2); see Shepard, 544 U. S., at
26. Here, that analysis is straightforward: Castleman pleaded
guilty to having “intentionally or knowingly cause[d] bodily
injury” to the mother of his child, App. 27, and the knowing
or intentional causation of bodily injury necessarily involves the
use of physical force.
First, a “bodily
injury” must result from “physical force.” Under
Tennessee law, “bodily injury” is a broad term: It
“includes a cut, abrasion, bruise, burn or disfigurement;
physical pain or temporary illness or impairment of the function of
a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty.” Tenn. Code Ann.
§39–11–106(a)(2) (1997). Justice Sca-lia’s
concurrence suggests that these forms of injury ne-cessitate
violent force, under Johnson’s definition of that phrase.
Post, at 3. But whether or not that is so—aquestion we do not
decide—these forms of injury do necessitate force in the
common-law sense.
The District Court
thought otherwise, reasoning that one can cause bodily injury
“without the ‘use of physical
force’ ”—for example, by “deceiving
[the victim] into drinking a poisoned beverage, without making
contact of any kind.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 41a. But as we
explained in Johnson, “physical force” is simply
“force exerted by and through concrete bodies,” as
opposed to “intellectual force or emotional force.” 559
U. S., at 138. And the common-law concept of
“force” encompasses even its indirect ap-plication.
“Force” in this sense “describ[es] one of the
elements of the common-law crime of battery,” id., at 139,
and “[t]he force used” in battery “need not be
applied directly to the body of the victim.” 2 W. LaFave,
Substan-tive Criminal Law §16.2(b) (2d ed. 2003). “[A]
battery may be committed by administering a poison or by infecting
with a disease, or even by resort to some intangible
substance,” such as a laser beam. Ibid. (footnote omitted)
(citing State v. Monroe, 121 N. C. 677, 28 S. E. 547
(1897) (poison); State v. Lankford, 29 Del. 594, 102 A. 63 (1917)
(disease); Adams v. Commonwealth, 33 Va. App. 463, 534
S. E. 2d 347 (2000) (laser beam)). It is impossible to
cause bodily injury without applying force in the common-law
sense.
Second, the knowing or
intentional application of force is a “use” of force.
Castleman is correct that under Leocal v. Ashcroft, 543 U. S.
1 (2004) , the word “use” “conveys the idea that
the thing used (here, ‘physical force’) has been made
the user’s instrument.” Brief for Respondent 37. But he
errs in arguing that although “[p]oison may have
‘forceful physical properties’ as a matter of organic
chemistry, . . . no one would say that a poisoner
‘employs’ force or ‘carries out a purpose by
means of force’ when he orshe sprinkles poison in a
victim’s drink,” ibid. The “useof force” in
Castleman’s example is not the act of
“sprinkl[ing]” the poison; it is the act of employing
poison knowingly as a device to cause physical harm. That the harm
occurs indirectly, rather than directly (as with a kick or punch),
does not matter. Under Castleman’s logic, after all, one
could say that pulling the trigger on a gun is not a “use of
force” because it is the bullet, not the trigger, that
actually strikes the victim. Leocal held that the “use”
of force must entail “a higher degree of intent than
negligent or merely accidental conduct,” 543 U. S., at
9; it did not hold that the word “use” somehow alters
the meaning of “force.”
Because
Castleman’s indictment makes clear that the use of physical
force was an element of his conviction, that conviction qualifies
as a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.”
III
We are not persuaded
by Castleman’s nontextual arguments against our
interpretation of §922(g)(9).
A
First, Castleman
invokes §922(g)(9)’s legislative history to suggest that
Congress could not have intended for the provision to apply to acts
involving minimal force. But to the extent that legislative history
can aid in the inter-pretation of this statute, Castleman’s
reliance on it is unpersuasive.
Castleman begins by
observing that during the debate over §922(g)(9), several
Senators argued that the provision would help to prevent gun
violence by perpetrators of severe domestic abuse. Senator
Lautenberg referred to “serious spousal or child abuse”
and to “violent individuals”; Senator Hutchison to
“ ‘people who batter their
wives’ ”; Senator Wellstone to people who
“brutalize” their wives or children; and Senator
Feinstein to “severe and recurring domestic violence.”
142 Cong. Rec. 22985–22986, 22988. But as we noted above, see
supra, at 2, the impetus of §922(g)(9) was that even
perpetrators of severe domestic violence are often convicted
“under generally applicable assault or battery laws.”
Hayes, 555 U. S., at 427. So nothing about these
Senators’ isolated references to severe domestic violence
suggests that they would not have wanted §922(g)(9) to apply
to a misdemeanor assault conviction like Castleman’s.
Castleman next observes
that §922(g)(9) is the product of a legislative compromise.
The provision originally barred gun possession for any “crime
of domestic violence,” defined as any “felony or
misdemeanor crime of violence, regardless of length, term, or
manner of punishment.” 142 Cong. Rec. 5840. Congress rewrote
the provision to require the use of physical force in response to
the concern “that the term crime of violence was too broad,
and could be interpreted to include an act such as cutting up a
credit card with a pair of scissors,” id., at 26675. See
Hayes, 555 U. S., at 428. Castleman would have us conclude
that Congress thus meant “to narrow the scope of the statute
to convictions based on especially severe conduct.” Brief for
Respondent 24. But all Congress meant to do was address the fear
that §922(g)(9) might be triggered by offenses in which no
force at all was directed at a person. As Senator Lautenberg noted,
the revised text was not only “more precise” than the
original but also “probably broader.” 142 Cong. Rec.
26675.
B
We are similarly
unmoved by Castleman’s invocation of the rule of lenity.
Castleman is correct that our “construction of a criminal
statute must be guided by the need for fair warning.” Crandon
v. United States, 494 U. S. 152, 160 (1990) . But “the
rule of lenity only applies if, after considering text, structure,
history, and purpose, there remains a grievous ambiguity or
uncertainty in the statute, such that the Court must simply guess
as to what Congress intended.” Barber v. Thomas, 560
U. S. 474, 488 (2010) (citation and internal quotation marks
omitted). That is not the case here.
C
Finally, Castleman
suggests—in a single paragraph—that we should read
§922(g)(9) narrowly because it implicates his constitutional
right to keep and bear arms. But Castleman has not challenged the
constitutionality of §922(g)(9), either on its face or as
applied to him, and the meaning of the statute is sufficiently
clear that we need not indulge Castleman’s cursory nod to
constitutional avoidance concerns.
* * *
Castleman’s
conviction for having “intentionally or knowingly cause[d]
bodily injury to” the mother of his child qualifies as a
“misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.” The judgment
of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is
therefore reversed, and the case is remanded for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.