Jonathan Robert Tarver v. United States

In Curtis Johnson v. United States, 559 U.S. 133, 140 (2010), this Court defined the term “physical force” in the elements clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) to mean “violent force – that is, force capable of causing pain or injury to another person.” In United States v. Castleman, 572 U.S. _, 134 S. Ct. 1405, 1413-14 (2014), the Court expressly left open the question of whether the causation of harm necessarily entails the use of “violent force.” In Turner v. Warden Coleman FCI, 709 F.3d 1328, 1341 (2013) the Eleventh Circuit held that a conviction under the Florida aggravated battery statute is a qualifying violent felony for purposes of the ACCA. However, below, the Eleventh Circuit recognized that Turner had been abrogated on other grounds by Samuel Johnson v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2551 (2015) and that Turner’s validity had been called into question in light of other more recent Supreme Court cases. The question presented is: 1. Under Curtis Johnson, Samuel Johnson, Descampus v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2276 (2013) and other cases currently before this Court is the Eleventh Circuit’s holding in Turner valid and/or does the causation of great bodily harm necessarily entail the use of “violent force”?