Episode 115
Opinion Summary: Delligatti v. United States | Date Decided: 3/21/25 | Case No. 23-825
Case Info: Delligatti v. United States | Date Decided: 3/21/25 | Case No. 23-825
Link to Docket: Here.
Question Presented: Whether a crime that requires proof of bodily injury or death, but can be committed by failing to take action, has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force.
Holding: The knowing or intentional causation of injury or death, whether by act or omission, necessarily involves the “use” of “physical force” against another person within the meaning of §924(c)(3)(A).
Result: Affirmed.
Voting Breakdown: Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Barrett joined. Justice Gorsuch filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Jackson joined.
Link to Opinion: Here.
Oral Advocates:
- For petitioner: Allon Kedem, Washington, D. C.
- For respondent: Eric J. Feigin, Deputy Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C.
Website Link to Oral Argument: Here.
Apple Podcast Link to Oral Argument: Here.
Transcript
The question presented in this case is whether a crime that requires proof of bodily injury or death but can be committed by failing to take action has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force.
Speaker A:Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Barrett joined.
Speaker A:Justice Gorsuch filed a dissenting opinion in which Justice Jackson joined.
Speaker A:Please note that this summary is read by an automated voice.
Speaker B:Justice Thomas's majority opinion title 18 USC section 924 EE, subjects a person who uses or carries a firearm during a crime of violence to a mandatory minimum sentence of five years.
Speaker B:Sections 924C.1A, I&D2 Section 924C.3A defines a crime of violence as a felony that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another.
Speaker B:To determine whether an offense falls within section 924 elements clause, the court applies the categorical approach, asking whether the offense in question always involves the use, attempted use, or threatened use of force.
Speaker B:Here, Salvatore Delegati was convicted of violating section 924 after he recruited gang members to kill a suspected police informant and gave them a loaded revolver to carry out the job before trial.
Speaker B:Delegati moved to dismiss his section 924C charge on the ground that the charge lacked the required predicate crime of violence.
Speaker B:But the district court denied his motion.
Speaker B: eteering VCAR Statute Section: Speaker B:Delegati argued that a vicar offense predicated on New York second degree murder is not a crime of violence under paragraph 924C's elements clause because homicide under New York law can be committed by omission, defined as the failure to perform a legal duty.
Speaker B:The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's conclusion that New York attempted second degree murder is a crime of violence for purposes of section 924C.3A held the knowing or intentional causation of injury or death, whether by act or omission, necessarily involves the use of physical force against another person.
Speaker B:Within the meaning of section 9.24C.3A, pages 4 to 13A.
Speaker B:It is impossible to deliberately cause physical harm without the use of physical force under section 924C.
Speaker B:In United States vs.
Speaker B:Castleman, 572 U.S.
Speaker B:157, this court held that under section 922G9, which prohibits anyone convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence from owning a firearm, the knowing or intentional causation of bodily injury necessarily involves the use of physical force.
Speaker B:At 169.
Speaker B:The court's reasoning proceeded in two steps.
Speaker B:First, the court found it impossible to cause bodily injury without applying the force needed to commit common law battery.
Speaker B:At 170, emphasis added.
Speaker B:Second, the court held that the knowing or intentional application of force is a use of force in that sense.
Speaker B:Emphasis added the logic of Castleman extends to section 924C.
Speaker B:Although the parties stipulate that section 922G9 and section 924C require different levels of force, battery level force versus violent force, that difference is immaterial here.
Speaker B: US: Speaker B:Although a mere touch is not sufficient force for common law robbery, any force that actually causes injury or death is.
Speaker B:Id.
Speaker B:At 83.
Speaker B:Further, common law robbery, like battery, can be committed through the indirect use of force.
Speaker B:Thus, the knowing or intentional causation of bodily injury necessarily involves the use of physical force under section 924C, just as it does under section 922G9.
Speaker B:Castleman, 572 U.S.
Speaker B:at 169, pages 4 to 8B.
Speaker B:Castleman's logic forecloses delegates challenge because New York second degree murder requires proof that the defendant intentionally caused the death of another person.
Speaker B:It necessarily involves the use of physical force under section 924.
Speaker B:Delegati contends that an offender can commit New York second degree murder without being the actual cause of the victim's death because the offender can do so through omission of a legal duty.
Speaker B:But the test for actual causality is whether the victim's death would not have occurred in the absence of that is, but for the defendant's conduct.
Speaker B:Burridge v.
Speaker B:United States, 571 U.S.
Speaker B:204, 211 internal quotation marks omitted.
Speaker B:When a child starves to death after the parents refuse to provide food, the parents conduct is no less a cause of death than if the parents had poisoned the child.
Speaker B:Delegati also argues that an offender who causes harm by omission does not make use of physical force against the person of another section 924, subsection C, subsection 3, subsection A.
Speaker B:But it is natural to say that a person makes use of something by deliberate inaction.
Speaker B:A mother who purposely kills her child by declining to intervene when the child drinks bleach makes use of the bleach's poisonous properties.
Speaker B:Similarly, the phrase against the person or property of another IS in section 924C.3A does not exclude crimes of omission.
Speaker B:That phrase, at most, requires that another person be the conscious object of the force.
Speaker B:Borden vs United States, 593 U.S.
Speaker B:424.
Speaker B:30 plurality opinion whenever an offender deliberately causes bodily harm by omission, another person is necessarily the conscious object of physical force.
Speaker B:The ordinary meaning of the term crime of violence confirms that Congress meant for the Elements Clause to cover crimes of omission.
Speaker B:Intentional murder is the prototypical crime of violence, and it has long been understood to incorporate liability for both act and omission.
Speaker B: In: Speaker B:If the Elements Clause is to have a reasonable relationship to the term it defines, it must encompass cases where the offender makes use of physical force by deliberate inaction.
Speaker B: ,: Speaker C:Section 924 C.3A's crime of violence definition does not encompass crimes of omission.
Speaker C:I find that to commit a crime of violence, an individual must 1 actively employ a violent or extreme physical act 3 knowingly or intentionally to harm another person or property.
Speaker C:I conclude that someone who causes bodily injury through omission fails to meet these criteria, as mere inaction does not constitute the active employment of force required by the statute.
Speaker C:The majority's reliance on Castleman and Stokeling misplaced, as these precedents do not support extending use of physical force to crimes of omission.
Speaker C:Castleman did not address crimes of omission and spoke of force in active terms.
Speaker C:And nothing in Stokeling begins to address the question whether a crime of omission entails the use of physical force.
Speaker C:More than that, Stokeling statements about the degree of force required to satisfy section 924 indicate that something beyond mere inaction is required.
Speaker C:Multiple precedents that support the reading that section 924C3A's crime of violence definition does not encompass crimes of omission.
Speaker C:Among other cases, Bailey v.
Speaker C:United States held that use carries an active meaning, implying action and implementation, not mere inaction or inertia.
Speaker C:Lyokel v.
Speaker C:Ashcroft and Voisin v.
Speaker C:United States interpret use to mean active employment and volitional conduct, and Johnson concludes that physical force excludes its physics meaning and requires more than mere touching.
Speaker C:We have no business guessing about unexpressed legislative intentions.
Speaker C:Even were we to play that game, the Court's intuition that Congress must have wanted section 924 to reach prototypical cause and result crimes might well be wrong.
Speaker A:Case Implications this decision may expand the reach of Section 924 sentencing enhancements by allowing prosecutors to seek mandatory consecutive sentences in cases where defendants cause death or injury through deliberate inaction while using or carrying a firearm.
Speaker A:However, as the dissent notes, the practical impact may be limited, since it would be unusual for someone to use, carry, or possess a firearm during a crime of pure omission.
