Borden v. United States
The Supreme Court ruled that only crimes committed with intent or knowledge — not mere recklessness — can count as 'violent felonies' under the federal law that imposes a mandatory 15-year prison sentence on repeat offenders found in possession of a gun.
The decision narrows who qualifies as an 'armed career criminal' under federal law, sparing people whose prior records consist only of reckless-conduct offenses from one of the harshest mandatory minimums in the federal criminal code.
“Offenses with a mens rea of recklessness do not qualify as violent felonies under ACCA. They do not require, as ACCA does, the active employment of force against another person. And they are not the stuff of armed career criminals.”
The plurality's summary of its holding on why reckless crimes fall outside ACCA's elements clause.
How it got here: A federal district court sentenced Borden as an armed career criminal; the Sixth Circuit affirmed based on circuit precedent; the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case to resolve a split among the federal appeals courts.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Charles Borden pleaded guilty in federal court to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The government sought a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act, citing three prior state convictions — including one for reckless aggravated assault under Tennessee law. Tennessee's law covers "recklessly" committing an assault that causes serious bodily injury or involves a deadly weapon. Borden argued that a crime requiring only recklessness cannot count as a "violent felony."
The question before the Court
Can a crime requiring only recklessness — a less culpable mental state than intent or knowledge — count as a "violent felony" and trigger the Armed Career Criminal Act's 15-year mandatory minimum sentence?
The Court's answer
No — a crime that can be committed through recklessness alone does not qualify as a "violent felony" under the Armed Career Criminal Act, so it cannot trigger the law's 15-year mandatory minimum. Five justices agreed on this result, though they split in reasoning. The four-justice plurality held that the phrase "use of physical force against the person of another" requires a perpetrator to consciously direct force at another individual — something reckless actors, who merely disregard a risk without targeting anyone, do not do. A fifth justice agreed with the outcome on different grounds, concluding that the "use of physical force" phrase itself requires intentional conduct.
The plurality also drew support from the statute's purpose: the Armed Career Criminal Act targets people who, when armed, might deliberately use a gun to harm someone — not people whose past offenses reflected inattention to risk. Reckless conduct, however blameworthy, is "far removed" from the deliberate violent behavior the law was designed to punish, and sweeping in reckless offenses would capture ordinary offenders like reckless drivers far outside the law's intended scope.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
People with prior convictions for reckless offenses — such as reckless assault or reckless homicide — will no longer automatically trigger the Armed Career Criminal Act's 15-year mandatory minimum when later caught illegally possessing a firearm. Federal prosecutors will have a harder time seeking enhanced sentences for defendants whose prior records include only reckless-conduct crimes, and some defendants already serving such sentences may seek review.
What changes now
The case is sent back to the lower court, where Borden must be resentenced without the Armed Career Criminal Act enhancement tied to his reckless assault conviction. Going forward, federal courts must exclude reckless-offense convictions when counting ACCA predicates. Defendants in circuits that previously relied on Voisine to treat reckless offenses as ACCA predicates may seek review of their sentences, though collateral-review time limits and other procedural hurdles may block many such challenges.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly left open whether offenses requiring "extreme recklessness" — sometimes called depraved-heart murder, a mental state between ordinary recklessness and knowledge — satisfy ACCA's elements clause. That question remains available for future cases. The decision also does not address how purpose and knowledge relate to each other for ACCA purposes.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas agreed that Borden's reckless assault conviction does not satisfy ACCA's elements clause, but parted ways with the plurality on why. In his view, the phrase 'use of physical force' — without any reference to the 'against' phrase — applies only to intentional acts designed to cause harm, as he argued in his Voisine dissent. Thomas also believes Johnson v. United States, which struck down ACCA's residual clause as unconstitutionally vague, was wrongly decided. He accepts Johnson in this case, however, because overruling it now would only deepen confusion in the lower courts about whether reckless assault statutes satisfy the elements clause.
Dissent — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh argued that 'against the person of another' is a centuries-old legal term of art that simply distinguishes crimes against people from crimes against property — it has nothing to do with the mental state required. Reckless assault and reckless homicide are plainly offenses against the person and should qualify as ACCA predicates. He also argued the Court's 2016 Voisine decision — which held that a similarly worded domestic-violence statute covers reckless offenses — should have controlled here, and that the plurality effectively rewrites that precedent. The dissent warned that the ruling may exclude even second-degree murder and manslaughter from ACCA's scope, a result it called 'glaringly absurd.'
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Armed Career Criminal Act's elements clause covers only prior offenses that have as an element the 'use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another.' Courts apply the categorical approach — they look at what a prior offense's elements require as a matter of law, not at the specific facts of the case, and ask whether even the least culpable conduct the offense covers satisfies the federal definition.
- The textual fight centered on the word 'against.' Borden argued it means 'in opposition to,' making the conduct targeted or directed at another person. The government argued it means merely 'making contact with.' The plurality sided with Borden: when 'against' modifies a volitional action like 'use of force,' it carries an oppositional meaning, requiring that the force be consciously aimed at another individual rather than just happening to land on one.
- A reckless actor — someone who consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk of harm — does not direct or target force at another person. His fault is insufficient attention to risk, not a deliberate choice to apply force to someone. By contrast, both purposeful actors (who consciously want to harm another) and knowing actors (who are practically certain their conduct will harm another) do consciously deploy force at a specific person, and both satisfy the clause.
- The Court's earlier ruling in Leocal v. Ashcroft — which held that negligent offenses fall outside a nearly identical statutory definition — strongly supports this result. Leocal called the 'against the person of another' phrase the 'critical aspect' of the definition and said it 'suggests a higher degree of intent' than negligence. That same reasoning, the plurality explained, logically bars reckless offenses as well, since recklessness is only one step above negligence on the mental-state scale.
- Context and purpose reinforce the textual reading. The term 'violent felony' naturally describes a narrow category of deliberate, active crimes. Congress enacted the Act to target serial violent offenders who, when armed, might 'deliberately point the gun and pull the trigger.' People with past reckless convictions — for running a stop sign, skiing recklessly into someone, or driving drunk — are 'far removed' from that profile, and including them would dilute the law's carefully confined scope.
- Voisine v. United States — which held that reckless offenses satisfy a domestic-violence statute's 'use of physical force' requirement — does not change the result. That statute lacked the 'against the person of another' phrase, so the Voisine Court never had to decide what that phrase requires. It is that additional phrase, and not the word 'use' alone, that does the mens-rea work in ACCA's elements clause. The domestic-violence provision also targets minor misdemeanors in a wholly different statutory context.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Leocal v. Ashcroft (543 U.S. 1)
Its reasoning that the 'against' phrase requires more intent than negligence is extended to exclude recklessness too.
Distinguishes Voisine v. United States (579 U.S. 686)
That statute lacked the 'against the person of another' phrase, so it does not control ACCA's elements clause.
Reaffirms Begay v. United States (553 U.S. 137)
Its description of ACCA's purpose — targeting deliberate violent offenders, not reckless ones — supports excluding recklessness.