The Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Johnson v. United States, a case arising from the Eleventh Circuit. In Johnson, the defendant pled guilty to possession of ammunition by a felon. The government sought an enhanced sentence under the ACCA. Johnson challenged the use of a Florida simple battery charge. Under Florida law, simple battery applies to any intentional touching, no matter how slight, including the touching of objects with an intimate connection to the victim, such as a closely held purse.
The state court records introduced at Johnson’s federal sentencing did not demonstrate anything more than a simple touching. Johnson argued that a simple touching did not constitute “physical force” as Congress intended that term to be used in the ACCA. The District Court found that a physical touch necessarily involved the use of force, and that touching someone against their will presented a serious potential risk of physical injury. Johnson appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, arguing that the Florida Supreme Court opinion in State v. Hearns, holding that simple battery does not have as an element “the use or threat of physical force or violence against any individual,”abrogated any Eleventh Circuit precedent holding that simple battery was a crime of violence. The Eleventh Circuit upheld Johnson’s ACCA sentence, holding that whether the ACCA applied to a state crime was a federal question, not a state one, and thus concluding that Hearns did not bind the federal courts.
The Supreme Court granted certiorari on two questions:
1. Whether, when a state’s highest court holds that a given offense of that state does not have as an element the use or threatened use of physical force, that holding is binding on federal courts in determining whether that same offense qualifies as a “violent felony” under the federal Armed Career Criminal Act, which defines “violent felony as, inter alia, any crime that “has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another.”
2. Whether this court should resolve a circuit split on whether a prior state conviction for simple battery is in all cases a “violent felony”- a prior offense that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another. Further, whether this court should resolve a circuit split on whether the physical force required is a de minimis touching in the sense of “Newtonian mechanics” or whether the physical force required must be in some way violent in nature- that is the sort of force that is intended to cause bodily injury, or at a minimum likely to do so.
This case could be quite significant. While interpretation of federal law would certainly be a federal matter, the ability to define state crimes has traditionally been a state matter, subject to constitutional limitations (none of which would be applicable here). The questions granted are wide-ranging, and could obviously lead to a decision on various grounds, including the definition of “force” under federal law. Stay tuned!
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