# Taylor v. United States > Supreme Court of the United States · May 29, 1990 · 495 U.S. 575 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9432019 ## Case - **Full name:** Taylor v. United States - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** May 29, 1990 - **Citations:** 495 U.S. 575; 58 U.S.L.W. 4616; 110 S. Ct. 2143; 109 L. Ed. 2d 607; 1990 U.S. LEXIS 2788 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Concurrence by Scalia - **Judges:** Blackmun, Rehnquist, Brennan, White, Marshall, Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, Scalia - **Cited by:** 4,884 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** Declined to follow by United States v. Eddie Lipscomb, 619 F.3d 474 (2010). - Negative treatments: 1 - Distinguished by: 3 - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9432019 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - holding that a similar definition of "violent felony" in the Armed Career Criminal Act, or ACCA, "requires the trial court to look only to the fact of 1"Physical force" means "violent force": "force capable of causing physical pain or injury to another person." United States v… - concluding, in the context of a prior conviction for burglary, that the enhancement statute “generally requires the trial court to look only to the fact of conviction and the statutory definition of the prior offense,” but “may permit the sentencing court to go beyond the mere… - concluding that sentencing enhancements for prior burglary convictions pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 924(e) must depend on a uniform federal definition of “burglary” rather than on the definition of burglary adopted by the state of conviction, and also noting that there is a general… - explaining that “[f]or example, in a State whose burglary statutes include entry of an automobile as well as a building, ... then the Government should be allowed to use the conviction for enhancement” if it can present appropriate documents showing that the defendant was char… - Holding that "an offense constitutes `burglary' for purposes of a § 924(e) sentence enhancement if either its statutory definition substantially corresponds to `generic' burglary, or the charging paper and jury instructions actually required the jury to find all the elements o… ## Opinion text *603 Justice Scalia, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. I join in the Court’s opinion except for Part II, which examines in great detail the statute’s legislative history. The examination does not uncover anything useful (i. e., anything that tempts us to alter the meaning we deduce from the text anyway), but that is the usual consequence of these inquiries (and a good thing, too). What is noteworthy, however, is that in this case it is hard to understand what we would have done if we had found anything useful. The Court says, correctly, that the statutory term “burglary” has a “generally accepted contemporary meaning” which must be given effect and which may not be modified by the rule of lenity. Ante, at 596, 598. But if the meaning is so clear that it cannot be constricted by that venerable canon of construction, surely it is not so ambiguous that it can be constricted by the sundry floor statements, witness testimony, and other legislative incunabula that the Court discusses. Is it conceivable that we look to the legislative history only to determine whether it displays, not a less extensive punitive intent than the plain meaning (the domain of the rule of lenity), but a more extensive one? If we found a more extensive one, I assume we would then have to apply the rule of lenity, bringing us back once again to the ordinary meaning of the statute. It seems like a lot of trouble. I can discern no reason for devoting 10 pages of today’s opinion to legislative history, except to show that we have given this case close and careful consideration. We must find some better way of demonstrating our conscientiousness. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9432019. Public record. Not legal advice.