SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 17–5554
_________________
DENARD STOKELING, PETITIONER
v. UNITED
STATES
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the eleventh circuit
[January 15, 2019]
Justice Sotomayor, with whom The Chief
Justice, Justice Ginsburg, and Justice Kagan join, dissenting.
In
Johnson v.
United States, 559
U. S. 133 (2010), this Court ruled that the words “physical
force” in the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18
U. S. C. §924(e)(2), denote a heightened degree of force,
rather than the minimal contact that would have qualified as
“force” for purposes of the common-law crime of battery.
Id., at 139–140. This case asks whether Florida robbery
requires such “physical force,” and thus qualifies as a “violent
felony” under the ACCA, even though it can be committed through use
of only slight force. See §924(e)(2)(B). Under
Johnson, the
answer to that question is no. Because the Court’s contrary ruling
distorts
Johnson, I respectfully dissent.
I
As the majority explains, petitioner Denard
Stokeling pleaded guilty in 2016 to being a felon in possession of
a firearm in violation of 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(1). The
Government and the probation department argued for an increased
sentence under the ACCA. Stokeling objected.
The ACCA imposes a 15-year mandatory-minimum
sentence on any §922(g) offender who has been convicted of at least
three qualifying predicate convictions. §924(e)(1). As relevant
here, a past conviction can qualify as an ACCA predicate if it is
what ACCA calls a “violent felony”—that is, “any crime punishable
by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” that
“(i) has as an element the use, attempted use,
or threatened use of physical force against the person of another;
or
“(ii) is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves
use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a
serious potential risk of physical injury to another.”
§924(e)(2)(B).
Clause (i) is often called the “elements clause”
(or “force clause”), because it requires each qualifying crime to
have an element involving force. The first part of clause (ii) is
often called the “enumerated clause,” because it enumerates certain
generic crimes—such as burglary—that Congress sought to cover. The
final part of clause (ii), often called the “residual clause,” once
offered a catchall to sweep in otherwise uncovered convictions, but
the Court struck it down as unconstitutionally vague in 2015. See
Johnson v.
United States, 576 U. S. ___, ___
(slip op., at 15). So the elements clause and the enumerated clause
are now the only channels by which a prior conviction can qualify
as an ACCA “violent felony.”
Whether Stokeling is subject to the ACCA’s
15-year mandatory minimum hinges on whether his 1997 conviction for
Florida robbery, see App. 10, qualifies under the elements clause.
To determine whether a conviction qualifies as a violent felony
under the ACCA, courts apply a method called the categorical
approach. See
Taylor v.
United States, 495 U. S.
575, 600–602 (1990). In the elements-clause context, that method
requires asking whether the least culpable conduct covered by the
statute at issue nevertheless “has as an element the use, attempted
use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of
another.” See §924(e)(2);
Johnson, 559 U. S., at 137.
If it does not, then the statute is too broad to qualify as a
“violent felony.” In determining what a state crime covers for
purposes of this federal sentencing enhancement, federal courts
look to, and are constrained by, state courts’ interpretations of
state law. See
id., at 138.
As relevant here, Florida law defines robbery as
“the taking of money or other property . . . from
the person or custody of another . . . when in the
course of the taking there is the use of force, violence, assault,
or putting in fear.” Fla. Stat. §812.13(1) (2017). The Florida
Supreme Court has interpreted the statute’s reference to force to
require “force sufficient to overcome a victim’s resistance.”
Robinson v.
State, 692 So. 2d 883, 887 (1997).
Otherwise, the “degree of force used is immaterial.”
Montsdoca v.
State, 84 Fla. 82, 86, 93 So. 157, 159
(1922). If the resistance is minimal, the force need only be
minimal as well.
II
Florida robbery, as interpreted and applied by
the Florida courts, covers too broad a range of conduct to qualify
as a “violent felony” under the ACCA. Both the text and purpose of
the ACCA—particularly as they have already been construed by our
precedents—demonstrate why.
A
In considering the text of the ACCA, we do not
write on a clean slate. As everyone seems to agree, the key
precedent here is this Court’s decision in
Johnson v.
United States, 559 U. S. 133. See
ante, at 3, 8.
But while the majority claims to honor
Johnson,
ante,
at 8–10, it does so in the breach.
Johnson concerned whether Florida battery
qualified as an ACCA predicate under the elements clause. This
Court held that it did not. To arrive at that answer, the Court was
required to interpret what exactly Congress meant when it used the
words “physical force” to define the kind of “violent felony” that
should be captured by the ACCA’s elements clause. See 559
U. S., at 138–143.
Rather than parsing “cherry pick[ed]
adjectives,”
ante, at 10, it is instructive to look to how
Johnson actually answered that question. Writing for the
Court, Justice Scalia explained:
“We think it clear that in the context of
a statutory definition of ‘
violent felony,’ the phrase
‘physical force’ means
violent force—that is, force capable
of causing physical pain or injury to another person. See
Flores v.
Ashcroft, 350 F. 3d 666, 672 (CA7 2003)
(Easterbrook, J.). Even by itself, the word ‘violent’ in
§924(e)(2)(B) connotes a substantial degree of force. Webster’s
Second 2846 (defining ‘violent’ as ‘[m]oving, acting, or
characterized, by physical force, esp. by extreme and sudden or by
unjust or improper force; furious; severe; vehement . . . ’); 19
Oxford English Dictionary 656 (2d ed. 1989) (‘[c]haracterized by
the exertion of great physical force or strength’); Black’s [Law
Dictionary] 1706 [(9th ed. 2009)] (‘[o]f, relating to, or
characterized by strong physical force’). When the adjective
‘violent’ is attached to the noun ‘felony,’ its connotation of
strong physical force is even clearer. See
id., at 1188
(defining ‘violent felony’ as ‘[a] crime characterized by extreme
physical force, such as murder, forcible rape, and assault and
battery with a dangerous weapon’); see also
United States v.
Doe, 960 F. 2d 221, 225 (CA1 1992) (Breyer, C. J.) (‘[T]he
term to be defined, “violent felony,” . . . calls to mind a
tradition of crimes that involve the possibility of more closely
related, active violence’).” 559 U. S., at 140–141.
In other words, in the context of a statute
delineating “violent felon[ies],” the phrase “physical force”
signifies a degree of force that is “
violent,”
“substantial,” and “strong”—“that is, force capable of causing
physical pain or injury to another person.” See
id., at 140;
see also
id., at 142 (“As we have discussed . . .
the term ‘physical force’ itself normally connotes force strong
enough to constitute ‘power’—and all the more so when it is
contained in a definition of ‘violent felony’ ”).
The majority, slicing
Johnson up,
concentrates heavily on the phrase “capable of causing physical
pain or injury” and emphasizes the dictionary definition of the
word “capable” to suggest that
Johnson “does not require any
particular degree of likelihood or probability” of “pain or
injury”—merely, as with any law professor’s eggshell-victim
hypothetical, “potentiality.”
Ante, at 10–11. Our opinions,
however, should not be “parsed as though we were dealing with the
language of a statute,”
Reiter v.
Sonotone Corp., 442
U. S. 330, 341 (1979), and in any event, the majority’s
parsing goes astray. It is clear in context that the Court in
Johnson did not mean the word “capable” in the way that the
majority uses it today, because
Johnson rejected an
interpretation of “physical force” that would have included a crime
of battery that could be satisfied by “[t]he most ‘nominal
contact,’ such as a ‘ta[p] . . . on the shoulder without
consent.’ ” 559 U. S., at 138. As any first-year torts
student (or person with a shoulder injury) quickly learns, even a
tap on the shoulder is “capable of causing physical pain or injury”
in certain cases. So the Court could not have meant “capable” in
the “potentiality” sense that the majority, see
ante, at 11,
ascribes to it. Rather, it meant it in the sense that its entire
text indicates: “force capable of causing physical pain or injury”
in the sense that a “strong” or “substantial degree of force” can
cause physical pain or injury. See
Johnson, 559 U. S.,
at 140. The phrase denoted, that is, a heightened degree of
force.
Florida robbery, as interpreted by the Florida
Supreme Court, cannot meet
Johnson’s definition of physical
force. As noted above, Florida robbery requires “force sufficient
to overcome a victim’s resistance.”
Robinson, 692
So. 2d, at 887. But that can mean essentially no force at all.
See
McCloud v.
State, 335 So. 2d 257, 258 (Fla.
1976) (“Any degree of force suffices to convert larceny into a
robbery”);
Montsdoca, 84 Fla., at 86, 93 So., at 159 (“The
degree of force used is immaterial”). For example, the force
element of Florida robbery is satisfied by a pickpocket who
attempts to pull free after the victim catches his arm. See
Robinson, 692 So. 2d, at 887, n. 10 (citing
Colby v.
State, 46 Fla. 112, 113, 35 So. 189, 190
(1903)). Florida courts have held the same for a thief who pulls
cash from a victim’s hand by “ ‘peel[ing] [his] fingers
back,’ ” regardless of “[t]he fact that [the victim] did not
put up greater resistance.”
Sanders v.
State, 769 So.
2d 506, 507 (Fla. App. 2000). The Government concedes, similarly,
that a thief who grabs a bag from a victim’s shoulder also commits
Florida robbery, so long as the victim instinctively holds on to
the bag’s strap for a moment. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 32–34; see also
Benitez-Saldana v.
State, 67 So. 3d 320, 322–323
(Fla. App. 2011). And Stokeling points to at least one person who
was convicted of Florida robbery after causing a bill to rip while
pulling cash from a victim’s hand. See App. B to Brief for
Petitioner.
While these acts can, of course, be accomplished
with more than minimal force, they need not be. The thief who
loosens an already loose grasp or (assuming the angle is right)
tears the side of a $5 bill has hardly used any force at all. Nor
does the thief who simply pulls his arm free from a store
employee’s weak grasp or snatches a handbag onto which a victim
fleetingly holds use “force capable of causing physical pain or
injury to another person” in the sense that
Johnson meant
the phrase, because he does not use “a substantial degree of force”
or “strong physical force.” See
Johnson, 559 U. S., at
140. By providing that “[a]ny degree of force suffices to convert
larceny into a robbery,”
McCloud, 335 So. 2d, at
258—and thus making robbers out of thieves who use minimal
force—Florida expands its law beyond the line that
Johnson
drew. The least culpable conduct proscribed by Fla. Stat. §812.13
does not entail “physical force,” §924(e)(2)(B)(i), as this Court
properly construed that phrase in
Johnson.
B
The purpose underlying the ACCA confirms that
a robbery statute that sweeps as broadly as Florida’s does not
qualify as an ACCA predicate.
As noted above, the ACCA prescribes a 15-year
mandatory-minimum prison term for anyone convicted of being a felon
in possession of a firearm so long as that person has three
qualifying past convictions. In
Begay v.
United
States, 553 U. S. 137 (2008), this Court explained that,
“[a]s suggested by its title, the Armed Career Criminal Act focuses
upon the special danger created when a particular type of
offender—a violent criminal or drug trafficker—possesses a gun.”
Id., at 146. The ACCA, that is to say, does not look to past
crimes simply to get a sense of whether a particular defendant is
generally a recidivist; rather, it looks to past crimes to
determine specifically “the kind or degree of danger the offender
would pose were he to possess a gun.”
Ibid.
Begay considered whether a New Mexico
felony conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI)
qualified as an ACCA predicate under the now-defunct residual
clause. See
id., at 141–142. Felony DUI, the Court
explained, did not fit with the types of crimes that Congress was
trying to capture, because while it “reveal[ed] a degree of
callousness toward risk,” it did not “show an increased likelihood
that the offender is the kind of person who might deliberately
point [a] gun and pull the trigger.”
Id., at 146. The Court
had “no reason to believe that Congress intended a 15-year
mandatory prison term where that increased likelihood does not
exist.”
Ibid.
The same is true here. The lower grade offenders
whom Florida still chooses to call “robbers” do not bear the
hallmarks of being the kind of people who are likely to point a gun
and pull the trigger, nor have they committed the more aggravated
conduct—pointing a weapon, inflicting bodily injury—that most
people think of when they hear the colloquial term “robbery.” Under
Florida law, “robbers” can be glorified pickpockets, shoplifters,
and purse snatchers. No one disputes that such an offender, if
later discovered illegally in possession of a firearm, will in many
cases merit greater punishment as a result of the past offense;
unless it occurred far in the past, such a conviction will
typically increase that defendant’s advisory sentencing range under
the U. S. Sentencing Guidelines. See
Rosales-Mireles v.
United States, 585 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2018) (slip op.,
at 2–3); United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual
§§1B1.1(a)(6)–(7), 4A1.1, 4A1.2(e) (Nov. 2018). But there is “no
reason to believe that Congress intended a 15-year mandatory prison
term” for such offenders, who do not present the increased risk of
gun violence that more aggravated offenders present. See
Begay, 553 U. S., at 146.
III
Unable to rely heavily on text, precedent, or
purpose to support its holding that Florida robbery qualifies as an
ACCA “violent felony,” the majority turns to the common law, to
legislative and statutory history, and finally to what it perceives
as the consequences of ruling for Stokeling. None of these
rationales is persuasive.
A
The majority observes that Florida’s statute
requires no less force than was necessary to commit common-law
robbery. That may well be true: The majority notes, for example,
that at common law “it was robbery to pull a diamond pin out of a
woman’s hair when doing so tore away hair attached to the pin,”
ante, at 4, and as anyone who has ever pulled a bobby pin
out of her hair knows, hair can break from even the most minimal
force. In the majority’s telling, however, the ACCA itself
“encompasses the degree of force necessary to commit common-law
robbery.”
Ante, at 13. That proposition is flatly
inconsistent with
Johnson.
In explaining its interpretation of “physical
force,” the Court in
Johnson expressly rejected the common
law’s definition of “force,” see 559 U. S.
, at 139,
instead recognizing that the phrase should be
“give[n] . . . its ordinary meaning,”
id., at
138. At common law, “force” could be “satisfied by even the
slightest offensive touching.”
Id., at 139. But as the Court
observed, “[a]lthough a common-law term of art should be given its
established common-law meaning, we do not assume that a statutory
word is used as a term of art where that meaning does not fit.”
Ibid. (citation omitted). Rather, “context determines
meaning,”
ibid., and, “in the context of a statutory
definition of ‘
violent felony,’ ” the ordinary rather
than the common-law meaning of “force” was what fit,
id., at
140.
The majority now says that while
Johnson
rejected the common-law meaning of force with regard to battery, it
nevertheless meant somehow to preserve the common-law meaning of
force with regard to robbery. See
ante, at 4–6, 8–10. In
other words, to reach its conclusion, the majority must construe
“physical force” in §924(e)(2)(B)(i) to bear two different
meanings—
Johnson’s and the majority’s—depending on the crime
to which it is being applied. That is a radical and unsupportable
step.
To be clear, the majority does not simply rule
that the phrase “physical force” carries the common-law meaning in
one place but a different meaning in another statutory provision.
There would certainly be precedent for that. See,
e.g., United
States v.
Castleman, 572 U. S. 157, 162–168 (2014)
(explaining why the phrase “physical force” took on a common-law
meaning, rather than its ACCA meaning under
Johnson, in the
context of a statute defining a “ ‘misdemeanor crime of
domestic violence’ ”).
Johnson, in fact, expressly
reserved the question whether “physical force” might mean something
different in the context of a different statutory definition. See
559 U. S., at 143–144.
What
Johnson did not do, however, was
suggest that “physical force” in a single clause—the elements
clause—that
Johnson addressed might mean two different
things for two different crimes. See
id., at 143 (“We have
interpreted the phrase ‘physical force’ only in the context of a
statutory definition of ‘violent felony’ ”); see also
id., at 138–142.
Johnson had good reason not to say
so: because that is not how we have said that statutory
interpretation works. See,
e.g., Clark v.
Martinez, 543 U. S. 371, 378 (2005) (observing that a
single statutory word or phrase “cannot . . . be
interpreted to do” two different things “at the same time”);
Ratzlaf v.
United States, 510 U. S. 135, 143
(1994) (similar).
Starting today, however, the phrase “physical
force” in §924(e)(2)(B)(i) will apparently lead a Janus-faced
existence. When it comes to battery, that phrase will look toward
ordinary meaning; when it comes to robbery, that same piece of
statutory text will look toward the common law. To the extent that
is a tenable construction, the majority has announced a brave new
world of textual interpretation. To the extent that a phrase so
divided cannot stand, meanwhile, one could be forgiven for thinking
that the majority, though it claims to praise
Johnson, comes
instead to bury it.
B
To shore up its argument that the ACCA’s use
of the phrase “physical force,” at least in the context of robbery,
takes on the common-law meaning of “force,” the majority invokes
the history of the ACCA. Statutory history is no help to the
majority here.
As the majority notes, a precursor to the ACCA
prescribed a mandatory-minimum sentence for people convicted of
firearm offenses who had three qualifying prior convictions “for
robbery or burglary.” 18 U. S. C. App. §1202(a) (1982
ed., Supp. II). That statute defined robbery, as relevant, as “the
taking of the property of another . . . by force or
violence.” §1202(c)(8) (1982 ed., Supp. II). See
ante, at
3–4. In other words, it is undisputed that at one point, in a
previous statute, Congress enumerated robbery as a qualifying
predicate and used the words “force or violence” to describe a
generic version of the crime.
Then, in 1986, Congress changed the statute,
substituting instead the language we know today. See Career
Criminals Amendment Act of 1986, §1402, 100Stat. 3207–39. Gone was
any explicit reference to “robbery”; in its place came not only the
elements clause (our focus here) but also the enumerated clause
(which retained an express reference to “burglary” but omitted
“robbery”) and the capacious residual clause (struck down in 2015).
See
ante, at 6;
supra, at 2; see also
Taylor,
495 U. S., at 582–584. So Congress did two salient things: It
expanded the predicates in general, and it deleted an express
reference to robbery.
The majority reasons that because (1) the old
law’s definition of “robbery” as a taking involving “force or
violence” matched various common-law definitions of robbery, (2)
Congress kept the word “force” (though not “or violence”) in the
new law’s elements clause while deleting the word “robbery,” and
(3) Congress meant to expand the enhancement’s reach in a general
sense, Congress must have meant for the phrase “physical force” in
the new law also to carry the common-law meaning of robbery. See
ante, at 4–7. The conclusion that the majority draws from
these premises does not follow, for at least four reasons.
First, as already discussed, the question
whether Congress’ use of the phrase “physical force” in the new
law—that is, in the ACCA’s elements clause—carries the common-law
meaning of “force” was already asked and an- swered by
Johnson: It does not. See 559 U. S., at 138–143, 145;
supra, at 9–10. This part of the majority’s argument may be
couched in statutory history, but it is no more than an attempt to
relitigate
Johnson.
Second, Congress deleted the word “robbery” from
the statute altogether while still enumerating robbery’s former
neighbor, “burglary,” in the enumerated clause. See
supra,
at 2, 11. When Congress keeps one piece of statutory text while
deleting another, we generally “have no trouble concluding that” it
does so with purpose, see,
e.g., Director of Revenue of Mo.
v.
CoBank ACB, 531 U. S. 316, 324 (2001), absent some
reason to believe that the missing term simply got “lost in the
shuffle,”
United States v.
Wilson, 503 U. S.
329, 336 (1992). See also,
e.g., Russello v.
United
States, 464 U. S. 16, 23–24 (1983) (“Where Congress
includes limiting language in an earlier version of a bill but
deletes it prior to enactment, it may be presumed that the
limitation was not intended”). Here, it is inconceivable that
Congress simply lost track of robbery, one of only two generic
crimes that it enumerated in the old statute. Accordingly, if
Congress had wanted to retain the old statute’s specific emphasis
on robbery, the natural reading is that it would have accomplished
that goal the same way it did with burglary: by making it an
enumer- ated offense. That it did not do so is telling.
Third, the fact that Congress wished to
“expan[d] the predicate offenses triggering the sentence
enhancement,”
Taylor, 495 U. S., at 582, is entirely
consistent with paring back the statute’s sweep with regard to
robbery specifically. I may wish to expand the contents of my
refrigerator, but that does not mean that I will buy more of every
single item that is currently in it the next time that I go
shopping. Here, the ACCA—with its (new, generalized) elements
clause, its (augmented) enumerated clause, and (until recently) its
highly capacious residual clause—undeniably expanded the precursor
statute’s bare enumeration of robbery and burglary, regardless of
how many robbery statutes qualify as predicates specifically under
the elements clause.[
1]
Fourth, even assuming that Congress wanted
robbery to remain largely encompassed by the ACCA despite deleting
the word from the precursor statute, that intent is fully
consistent with properly applying
Johnson here. The
majority, by focusing on the elements clause, ignores the residual
clause, which—until it was declared unconstitutional in
2015—provided a home for many crimes regardless of whether they
included an element of violent “physical force.”[
2] Hewing to a proper reading of
Johnson, in other words, does not require assuming that
Congress constricted the precursor statute’s application to robbery
when it enacted today’s ACCA; whatever robberies would have
qualified under the old statute presumably could have still
qualified under the residual clause during its nearly 20-year
existence.
In short, the statutory history does not
undermine the conclusion that the ACCA’s elements clause, under our
precedents, is not broad enough to encompass Florida’s robbery
statute. Congress deleted the word “robbery,” kept the word
“burglary,” supplemented burglary with the catchall residual clause
that still captured many robberies outside the elements clause, and
used the phrase “physical force” in the elements clause to define a
type of “violent felony,” which
Johnson tells us requires
more force than the term’s common-law meaning denotes. See 559
U. S., at 138–143, 145. Statutory history cannot get the
major- ity past both the text and the force of
stare decisis
here.
C
That leaves the majority with only the
practical consequences that it asserts would follow if this Court
were to hold that Florida robbery does not qualify under the ACCA’s
elements clause. See
ante, at 7–8. While looking to how an
interpretation of a federal statute would affect the applicability
of related state statutes can be a useful approach in these cases,
see,
e.g., Castleman, 572 U. S., at 167, the results
that follow from a proper reading of
Johnson are not nearly
as incongruous as the majority suggests.
To begin, take the majority’s assertion “that
many States’ robbery statutes would not qualify as ACCA
predicates,”
ante, at 7, if the Court were to apply
Johnson as it was written. The accuracy of this statement is
far less certain than the majority’s opinion lets on. While
Stokeling and the Government come close to agreeing that at least
31 States’ robbery statutes do have an overcoming-resistance
requirement, see
ante, at 7, that number is not conclusive
because neither Stokeling nor the Government has offered an
accounting of how many of those States allow minimal force to
satisfy that requirement, as Florida does. Because robbery laws
vary from State to State, and because even similarly worded
statutes may be construed differently by different States’ courts,
some of those 31 States may well require more force than Florida
does. See,
e.g., United States v.
Doctor, 842
F. 3d 306, 312 (CA4 2016) (ruling that “there is no indication
that South Carolina robbery by violence”—a statute cited by the
Government here—“can be committed with minimal actual force”); see
also
Gonzales v.
Duenas-Alvarez, 549 U. S. 183,
193 (2007) (explaining that the categorical approach “requires a
realistic probability, not a theoretical possibility, that the
State would apply its statute to conduct that falls outside the
generic definition of a crime”).[
3]
Furthermore, even if it is true “that many
States’ robbery statutes would not qualify as ACCA predicates”
under a faithful reading of
Johnson, see
ante, at 7,
that outcome would stem just as much (if not more) from the death
of the residual clause as from a decision in this case. As
discussed above, various state robbery statutes qualified under
that expansive clause for nearly 20 years, until vagueness problems
led this Court to strike the clause down as unconstitutional. See
supra, at 13–14, and n. 2; see also
Johnson v.
United States, 576 U. S. ___ (2015). The fall of that
clause would therefore be an independent cause of any drop in
qualifying predicates, regardless of what this Court decides today.
(A drop in robbery statutes qualifying as ACCA predicates could
also, of course, be traceable to Congress’ decision not to continue
enumerating robbery when it enacted the ACCA in the first place.)
In short, the majority, fearful for the camel, errs in blaming the
most recent straw.[
4]
Separately, even if a number of simple robbery
statutes were to cease qualifying as ACCA predicates, that does not
mean—as the majority implies, see
ante, at 7—that the same
fate necessarily would befall most or even many aggravated robbery
statutes. The majority offers the single example of Florida
aggravated robbery, noting that “Florida requires the same element
of ‘force’ for both armed robbery and basic robbery.”
Ibid.
But while the majority accurately describes Florida law, there is
scant reason to believe that a great many other States’ statutes
would be similarly affected, because the effect that hewing to
Johnson would have on Florida aggravated robbery stems from
the idiosyncrasy that Florida aggravated robbery requires neither
displaying a weapon nor threatening or inflicting bodily
injury.[
5] The result for
Florida aggravated robbery therefore sheds little light on what
would happen to other aggravated-robbery statutes, the vast
majority of which do (and did at the time of the ACCA’s enactment)
appear to provide for convictions on such grounds—and whose
validity as ACCA predicates would not necessarily turn on the
question the Court faces today.[
6] The majority mistakes one anomalous result for a reason
not to apply
Johnson as it was written.
IV
This Court’s decision in
Johnson tells
us that when Congress wrote the words “physical force” in the
context of a statute targeting “violent felon[ies],” it eschewed
the common-law meaning of those words and instead required a higher
degree of force. See 559 U. S., at 138–143, 145.
Johnson resolves this case. Florida law requires no more
than minimal force to commit Florida robbery, and Florida law
therefore defines that crime more broadly than Congress defined the
elements clause.
The crime that most people think of when they
think of “robbery” is a serious one. That is all the more reason,
however, that this Court should not allow a dilution of the term in
state law to drive the expansion of a federal statute targeted at
violent recidivists. Florida law applies the label “robbery” to
crimes that are, at most, a half-notch above garden-variety
pickpocketing or shoplifting. The Court today does no service to
Congress’ purposes or our own precedent in deeming such crimes to
be “violent felonies”—and thus predicates for a 15-year
mandatory-minimum sentence in federal prison.
I respectfully dissent.