Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1459_n7ip.pdf
Page Number: 30.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

13 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

if ramming a vehicle into a police officer is a crime of vio-
lence”);  Davis,  875  F. 3d,  at  604  (holding  that  a  man
charged with first-degree rape who pleaded to first-degree
sexual abuse by forcible compulsion had not committed an
ACCA “violent felony” because the force required was insuf-
ficiently violent).  Moreover, courts attempting to apply the 
categorical  approach  waste  time  thinking  up  improbable 
hypotheticals,  making  the  approach  “very  difficult  to  ad-
minister.”  Burris,  912  F. 3d,  at  407  (Thapar,  J.,  concur-
ring); see also, e.g., Cradler v. United States, 891 F. 3d 659, 
672 (CA6 2018) (Kethledge, J., concurring) (“Whatever the
merits of this approach, accuracy and judicial efficiency are 
not among them”).  Finally, Congress, through legislation, 
created crimes like §924(c) and enhancements like ACCA to
reduce gun crime rates by imposing long sentences on vio-
lent criminals who use firearms.  See Davis, 588 U. S., at 
___–___ (KAVANAUGH, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 1–2).  Yet, 
as  a  growing  chorus  of  Court  of  Appeals  judges  has  ex-
plained, the categorical approach stymies that effort.  See, 
e.g.,  United  States  v.  Ovalles,  905  F. 3d  1231,  1253–1257 
(CA11 2018) (W. Pryor, J., concurring).  No rational legisla-
ture  would  have  implicitly  imposed  this  byzantine  and 
resource-depleting legal doctrine that so encumbers federal 
courts and threatens public safety. 

Worse still, this Court has imposed these costs on the fed-
eral courts and the public even though the text of these pro-
visions does not demand them.  I have already pointed out
the “absurdity of applying the categorical approach to the
enumerated-offenses clause” of ACCA and have suggested
that a conduct-based approach better fits the text.  Quarles 
v. United States, 587 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2019) (THOMAS, J., 
concurring) (slip op., at 1–2).  And although the categorical
approach might be a “linguistically possible” interpretation
of the residual clauses, “the underlying-conduct approach is
the better one.”  Dimaya, 584 U. S., at ___ (THOMAS, J., dis-
senting) (slip op., at 25).  And finally, while I have suggested