United States v. Castleman

The Court began with the ordinary interpretive presumption that Congress adopts the established common-law meaning of a legal term unless the statutory context indicates otherwise. At common law, battery required only the slightest offensive touching. The Court concluded that this meaning of “force” fits naturally in Congress’s definition of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.

Johnson did not compel a contrary result. Johnson held that “physical force” in the Armed Career Criminal Act meant violent force because applying the common-law battery definition to the phrase “violent felony” would have been a “comical misfit.” But the term defined here is a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence,” not a violent felony. Conduct sufficient for a misdemeanor battery conviction is therefore a sensible fit rather than an anomaly.

Congress enacted § 922(g)(9) to close the gap that allowed domestic abusers convicted only of misdemeanors to retain firearms. Because domestic abuse is routinely prosecuted under general assault and battery statutes, Congress likely intended the provision to encompass the ordinary battery conduct those statutes cover.

The phrase “domestic violence” also has a broader practical reach than “violence” considered in the abstract. Domestic abuse frequently includes comparatively minor acts such as pushing, grabbing, pinching, and slapping. Though an isolated minor act might not ordinarily be called violent, repeated acts can be part of coercive domestic abuse and carry serious risks of escalation, particularly when firearms are available.

A violent-force rule would also have substantially impaired the statute when enacted. In many States, domestic assault and battery laws included offensive touching, either alone or together with bodily injury. Excluding offensive touching would have left § 922(g)(9) ineffective in at least ten States and for nearly thirty percent of the population, an implausible result given Congress’s effort to address a nationwide loophole.

The Court applied the categorical framework of Taylor and Shepard. Tennessee’s incorporated assault provision covered several different forms of assault, including causing bodily injury, causing fear of imminent bodily injury, and extremely offensive physical contact. Because the parties agreed that the statute was divisible, the Court could use the charging document to identify the alternative forming the basis of Castleman’s conviction.

Castleman pleaded guilty specifically to intentionally or knowingly causing bodily injury to the mother of his child. Under Tennessee law, bodily injury includes such harms as a cut, abrasion, bruise, burn, physical pain, temporary illness, or impairment of a bodily function. Causing such an injury necessarily requires force in the common-law sense.

The force need not be applied directly through bodily contact. Common-law battery could be committed indirectly, including by administering poison, infecting someone with a disease, or using another force-producing instrumentality. Thus, causing injury by tricking a victim into drinking poison still involves physical force because the defendant employs the poison as the means of causing physical harm.

The mens rea in Castleman’s conviction also satisfied the statutory requirement that force be “used.” Knowingly or intentionally employing poison or another indirect means to cause bodily injury is a use of force. Leocal requires active and more-than-accidental conduct, but it does not require that the defendant personally strike the victim or apply force at close range.

References in legislative debate to severe abuse and battering did not show that Congress intended to exclude misdemeanor assault convictions like Castleman’s. Congress understood that even serious and recurring domestic abuse is often prosecuted through generally applicable misdemeanor assault or battery laws.

The legislative compromise that replaced the broader phrase “crime of domestic violence” with a requirement of physical force was aimed at excluding offenses where no force was directed at a person, such as cutting up a credit card. It did not show an intent to limit the statute to especially severe physical violence; indeed, the revised wording was described during debate as potentially broader as well as more precise.

Lenity applies only when a criminal statute remains grievously ambiguous after consideration of text, structure, history, and purpose. The Court found no such unresolved uncertainty here. Castleman had also not raised a constitutional challenge to § 922(g)(9), and the statutory meaning was sufficiently clear that constitutional avoidance did not alter the analysis.