Johnson v. United States
The Court ruled that a Florida battery conviction based on nothing more than an unwanted touch does not count as a "violent felony" under the federal Armed Career Criminal Act, because the law's phrase "physical force" means force capable of causing pain or injury, not just any physical contact.
The decision limits which past convictions federal prosecutors can use to trigger the Act's 15-year mandatory minimum sentence, cutting back on gun defendants being classified as career criminals based on minor touching offenses.
How it got here: A federal district court and the Eleventh Circuit both ruled the Florida battery conviction qualified as a violent felony; the Supreme Court agreed to review that ruling.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Curtis Johnson pleaded guilty to illegally possessing ammunition as a felon. Prosecutors sought a much longer mandatory sentence under a federal law aimed at repeat violent offenders, counting a prior Florida battery conviction as one of three qualifying violent felonies. That Florida offense could be committed by merely touching someone without their consent, with no proof of injury or forceful contact required.
The question before the Court
Does a Florida battery conviction based on the "slightest" unwanted touching count as a "violent felony" under the federal law that increases prison sentences for repeat gun offenders?
Why it matters
People convicted of illegally possessing guns after felony records will not automatically face a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence just because one of their past convictions was for the mildest form of battery, like an unwanted tap or touch. Federal prosecutors must now show that a prior battery conviction involved more forceful, injury-capable contact before it counts toward that enhanced sentence.
What changes now
The Court reversed the Eleventh Circuit's ruling and sent the case back for further proceedings, meaning Johnson's enhanced 15-year sentence cannot stand based on the battery conviction as classified. The Court declined the government's request to consider whether the conviction might still qualify under a different, "residual" part of the law, since the government had not preserved that argument earlier in the case.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly declined to decide whether "physical force" means the same thing in other federal laws, such as the ban on gun possession by people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence or the immigration law defining removable domestic-violence crimes, leaving those questions open for future cases.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Alito
“This approach recognized that an offensive but nonviolent touching (for example, unwanted sexual contact) may be even more injurious than the use of force that is sufficient to inflict physical pain or injury (for example, a sharp slap in the face).”The dissent's objection that requiring violent force overlooks other serious kinds of harmful touching.
Justice Alito argued that Congress meant to adopt the traditional common-law definition of battery, under which even the slightest unwanted touching satisfies the "force" requirement. He warned the majority's approach would exclude many serious spousal- and child-abuse convictions from counting under the gun and immigration laws, since about half the states use battery statutes covering both violent and merely offensive touching, and records often won't show which type of conduct was involved.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court had to decide what "physical force" means in the federal law's definition of "violent felony," since the statute does not define the phrase itself and courts must give it its ordinary meaning.
- The Court considered whether "force" should carry its old common-law meaning from the crime of battery, which counted even the slightest unwanted touch as satisfying the force requirement, or a stronger everyday meaning.
- Because the phrase appears inside a definition of "violent felony," the Court reasoned that context requires "physical force" to mean violent force -- force capable of causing pain or injury -- rather than any touch, however light.
- The Court noted that battery based on mere touching was historically treated as a low-level misdemeanor, not a felony, making it an odd fit for a definition aimed at identifying violent felonies.
- Applying this stricter meaning, the Court concluded that Florida's battery-by-touching offense does not have the required element of violent physical force, so it cannot count as a predicate violent felony.
- Because nothing in the record showed Johnson's prior conviction rested on anything beyond the least serious form of battery, that conviction could not support the enhanced sentence.