Whitfield v. United States

Background

Larry Whitfield fled police after a failed bank robbery and entered the home of 79-year-old Mary Parnell through an unlocked door. He guided Parnell from a hallway to a computer room, a distance he estimated between four and nine feet. Parnell suffered a fatal heart attack there, and Whitfield was later indicted under the federal forced-accompaniment law, 18 U.S.C. § 2113(e). A jury convicted him, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed; the Court agreed to decide whether short movement counts as accompanying.

Reasoning

The Court addressed whether the statute requires substantial distance to force someone to accompany a robber. Looking to the ordinary meaning of “accompany” — to go with — the Court concluded the word includes going with someone even for a short distance or within a single building. The majority rejected Whitfield’s arguments that the law should be narrowed because of its severe penalties or to avoid overlap with other parts of the statute. The Court explained that Congress used plain language that covers movement from one place to another, even across a room, and that adding a distance limit would insert words the statute does not contain. The Court therefore held Whitfield forced Parnell to accompany him and affirmed his conviction.

Real world impact

This decision makes clear that forcing a victim to move even a few feet inside a building can satisfy the federal forced-accompaniment offense. Prosecutors can rely on the statute when victims are moved from one room to another; defendants face the statute’s mandatory minimum and statutory maximum penalties as written.