Johnson v. United States (2010)

Johnson v. United States, 559 U.S. 133 (2010), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that, for the government to seek an enhanced sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act for a criminal defendant who has previously been convicted of a violent felony, the previous conviction must be for a crime that required the state to prove the use of violent force as an element of the offense. In this case, the previous conviction was for battery in a jurisdiction where the state needed to prove that a defendant "[a]ctually and intentionally touch[ed]" another person. The court held that this did not satisfy the ACCA's "violent felony" standard because this did not require the state to prove that the defendant used any violent force.