Dearnta Lavon Thomas v. United States

Section 924(c) of Title 18, U.S. Code, makes it a crime to carry a firearm in furtherance of a “crime of violence.” As this Court’s recent decisions make clear, a predicate crime of violence is an offense that “has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force” purposefully targeted “against the person or property of another.” 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(3)(A); see Borden v. United States, 593 U.S. 420, 424 (2021); United States v. Davis, 588 U.S. 445, 470 (2019). To decide whether a predicate offense is a crime of violence under § 924(c), courts use the categorical approach and look to the predicate’s elements—not to a defendant’s conduct in a given case—and determine whether every conviction for that predicate crime necessarily involves force purposefully directed at another. The statute that formed the basis for the § 924(c) conviction here, the violent crimes in aid of racketeering (VICAR) statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1959, makes it a crime to support a racketeering enterprise by committing an enumerated offense—including murder, maiming, and assault with a dangerous weapon—“in violation of the laws of any State or the United States.” Id. § 1959(a). That means that a VICAR offense, in turn, must rest on some predicate state or federal crime, and the elements of a charged VICAR offense include the elements of that predicate. The question presented is whether, when a defendant’s § 924(c) conviction is predicated on a VICAR offense, a court must apply the categorical approach to the offense on which that VICAR offense is predicated, and determine whether that underlying offense is categorically a crime of violence.