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Travis Croft v. United States

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, No. 18-6627 · judgment January 29, 2021


Certiorari denied · October 12, 2021
Pre-decision estimate: 4% cert probability

Before the decision, roughly the 4.1% base rate. The model weighted this up for a circuit split argued in the petition, a dissent in the court below (flagged in the petition), and a Fourth Circuit decision below.

Questions presented

  1. Whether the Fourth Circuit erred in concluding that a conviction for South Carolina carjacking, S.C. Code § 16-3-1075, is categorically a crime of violence under the force clause of the Armed Career Criminal Act, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i), where the state carjacking statute, on its face, criminalizes taking a vehicle by “by force and violence or by intimidation.”

  2. Whether the Fourth Circuit, departing from this Court’s instructions that the categorical approach focuses on the usual and customary meaning of a statute’s plain text, erred in placing improper weight on Petitioner’s failure to identify “actual cases” demonstrating nonviolent applications of South Carolina’s carjacking statute—even though the South Carolina statute, on its face, criminalizes acts of “intimidation” that are not necessarily violent.

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Bradley N. Garcia
O'Melveny & Myers, LLP

For respondent
Brian H. Fletcher
Acting Solicitor General

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Proceedings

  1. Oct 12 2021
    Petition DENIED.
  2. Sep 15 2021
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 10/8/2021.
  3. Sep 10 2021
    Waiver of right of respondent United States to respond filed.
  4. Aug 26 2021
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due September 29, 2021)