violent felony
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 495 U.S. 575 - Taylor v. United States · 1990Most cited · 10,601 citing opinions
any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year .
How the Supreme Court has restated “violent felony”
Each Supreme Court definition of “violent felony,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “violent felony”
Court decisions citing the 4 opinions that defined “violent felony” — 12,832 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 4 definitions, chronological · 1990–2016
any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, or any act of juvenile delinquency involving the use or carrying of a firearm, knife, or destructive device that would be punishable by imprisonment for such term if committed by an adult, that— "(i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; or "(ii) is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwis
including any crime that "involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another." (Emphasis added.) Because Congress did not include a similar limitation in § 924(e)(2)(B)(i), we should presume that it did not intend for such a limitation to apply.
among other things, "any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year ...