Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1459_n7ip.pdf
Page Number: 11

8 

UNITED STATES v. TAYLOR 

Opinion of the Court 

convicted too.  See supra, at 4–6; cf. Model Penal Code, at 
114–115. 

Seeking a way around this problem, the government re-
sponds that we (and presumably the drafters of the Model
Penal Code) misconstrue what qualifies as the “threatened 
use” of force.  On its view, anyone who takes a substantial 
step toward completing Hobbs Act robbery (say, by buying
a weapon, plotting his heist and getaway, writing an extor-
tive note before he leaves home, and entering a store) objec-
tively poses a “threatened use” of force even if he never com-
municates his threat to anyone.

This reply bears its own problems.  To start, in the crim-
inal law the word “threat” and its cognates usually denote 
“[a] communicated intent to inflict physical or other harm
on any person or on property.”2  Of course, threats can be 
communicated verbally or nonverbally—pointing a gun at a 
cashier conveys a threat no less effectively than passing a 
note reading “your money or your life.”  But one way or an-
other,  some  form  of  communication  is  usually  required.
Even the government concedes that the words “threatened 
force”  in  the  Hobbs  Act  require  proof  that  the  defendant
communicated a threat to a second person, whether or not
that individual is the target of the threat.  See Reply Brief 
15. 

That leaves the government to suggest that § 924(c)(3)(A)
differs from the Hobbs Act and represents an exception to 

—————— 

2 Black’s  Law  Dictionary  1327  (5th  ed.  1979)  (defining  “threat”); 
Stroud’s Judicial Dictionary 2633 (5th ed. 1986) (defining “threat” and 
“threaten”);  see  also,  e.g.,  Oxford  English  Dictionary  998  (2d  ed.  1989) 
(threaten:  “To try to influence (a person) by menaces; to utter or hold out 
a threat against; to declare (usually conditionally) one’s intention of in-
flicting  injury  upon”);  Webster’s  Third  New  International  Dictionary 
2382 (3d ed. 1986) (threaten:  “to utter threats against”; to “promise pun-
ishment,  reprisal,  or  other  distress  to”);  American  Heritage  Dictionary 
1265 (2d ed. 1985) (threat:  “An expression of an intention to inflict pain, 
injury,  evil,  or  punishment”);  ibid.  (threaten:    “[t]o  express  a  threat 
against”).