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Page Number: 12

10 

JOHNSON v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

and  result  in  physical  injury,”  United  States  v.  Williams, 
559 F. 3d 1143, 1149 (CA10 2009); others have felt that it
“do[es]  a  great  disservice  to  law  enforcement  officers”  to
assume  that  they  would  “explod[e]  into  violence”  rather
than  “rely  on  their  training  and  experience  to  determine 
the  best  method  of  responding,”  United  States  v.  Cart-
horne,  726  F. 3d  503,  514  (CA4  2013).    Some  judges  con­
sidering  whether  statutory  rape  qualifies  as  a  violent 
felony have concentrated on cases involving a perpetrator
much  older  than  the  victim,  United  States  v.  Daye,  571 
F. 3d  225,  230–231  (CA2  2009);  others  have  tried  to  ac­
count  for  the  possibility  that  “the  perpetrator  and  the
victim [might be] close in age,” United States v. McDonald, 
592 F. 3d 808, 815 (CA7 2010).  Disagreements like these
go well beyond disputes over matters of degree.

It  has  been  said  that  the  life  of  the  law  is  experience. 
Nine  years’  experience  trying  to  derive  meaning  from  the
residual clause convinces us that we have embarked upon
a failed enterprise.  Each of the uncertainties in the resid­
ual  clause  may  be  tolerable  in  isolation,  but  “their  sum
makes  a  task  for  us  which  at  best  could  be  only  guess­
work.”  United States v. Evans, 333 U. S. 483, 495 (1948).
Invoking so shapeless a provision to condemn someone to
prison for 15 years to life does not comport with the Con­
stitution’s guarantee of due process. 

B 
The  Government  and  the  dissent  claim  that  there  will 

be  straightforward  cases  under  the  residual  clause,  be­
cause  some  crimes  clearly  pose  a  serious  potential  risk  of 
physical injury to another.  See post, at 14–15 (opinion of 
ALITO,  J.).    True  enough,  though  we  think  many  of  the 
cases the Government and the dissent deem easy turn out
not  to  be  so  easy  after  all.    Consider  just  one  of  the  Gov­
ernment’s  examples,  Connecticut’s  offense  of  “rioting  at  a 
correctional  institution.”  See  United  States  v.  Johnson,