Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1459_n7ip.pdf
Page Number: 23.0

6 

UNITED STATES v. TAYLOR 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

This Court eventually extended the categorical approach
to  ACCA’s  residual  clause  as  well.    In  James  v.  United 
States, 550 U. S. 192 (2007), the Court, at the urging of both
parties, “employ[ed] the ‘categorical approach’ ” to analyze
ACCA’s  residual  clause.    Id.,  at  202  (quoting  Shepard  v. 
United States, 544 U. S. 13, 17 (2005)).  That clause defines 
a  “violent  felony”  as  one  that  “otherwise  involves  conduct 
that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to 
another.”  §924(e)(2)(B)(ii).  James explained that ACCA’s
residual-clause  categorical  approach  boiled  down  to  two 
steps.  First, a court looked to the elements of the crime for 
which the defendant was convicted and asked what conduct 
the “ordinary case” of that crime entailed.  550 U. S., at 208. 
Second, the court asked whether that “ordinary case” “pre-
sent[ed] a serious potential risk of injury to another” com-
parable  to  that  posed  by  the  specific  crimes  listed  in  the 
enumerated-offenses clause.  Id., at 204, 208–209.  If it did, 
then the predicate crime was a “violent felony.”

That  test  proved  difficult  to  apply.  In  particular,  the
Court struggled with how to define the “ordinary case” of a
given predicate crime.  See Johnson, 576 U. S., at 597 (“How
does one go about deciding what kind of conduct the ordi-
nary case of a crime involves?  A statistical analysis of the 
state reporter?  A survey?  Expert evidence?  Google?  Gut 
instinct?” (internal quotation marks omitted)).  The Court 
likewise struggled in assessing what level of risk the ordi-
nary case presented.  Id., at 598.  After trying to apply this
approach  several  times,  see,  e.g.,  Begay  v.  United  States, 
553 U. S. 137 (2008), the Court in Johnson ultimately aban-
doned the project.  But rather than reassess whether it had 
adopted the right analytical framework in light of ACCA’s
text and statutory context, the Court in Johnson nullified 
ACCA’s  residual  clause  altogether.    See  576  U. S.,  at  624 
(THOMAS,  J.,  concurring  in  judgment).    According  to  the
Court,  the  “[t]wo  features”  of  the  residual-clause  analysis 
that  the  Court  set  out  in  James—identifying  “ordinary