# Mathis v. United States > Supreme Court of the United States · June 23, 2016 · 26 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 315 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9824287 ## Case - **Full name:** Richard MATHIS, Petitioner v. UNITED STATES. - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** June 23, 2016 - **Citations:** 26 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 315; 579 U.S. 500; 84 U.S.L.W. 4512; 195 L. Ed. 2d 604; 136 S. Ct. 2243; 2016 U.S. LEXIS 4060 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Concurrence by Kennedy - **Judges:** Kagan, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito - **Cited by:** 2,679 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - **Yellow flag:** Questioned by United States v. Faust, 853 F.3d 39 (2017). - Negative treatments: 2 - Distinguished by: 2 - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9824287 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - explaining that the modified categorical approach “is not to be repurposed as a technique for discovering whether a defendant's prior conviction, even though for a too-broad crime, rested on facts (or otherwise said, involved means) that also could have satisfied the elements … - explaining that a “sentencing court faced with an alternatively phrased statute” must first decide if the “listed items are elements or means. If they are elements, the court should [apply the categorical approach]. . . . But if instead they are means, the court has no call to… - finding the Iowa burglary statute indivisible because of a state supreme court holding that “[t]he listed premises in Iowa’s burglary law . . . are ‘alternative method[s]’ of committing one offense, so that a jury need not agree whether the burgled location was a building, oth… - holding that prior conviction does not qualify as generic form of predicate violent felony offense listed in Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 924 (e), if an element of crime of conviction is broader than an element of generic offense because crime of conviction … - explaining that where one count of an indictment reiterates all the terms of a state’s law, “[t]hat is as clear an indication as any that each alternative is only a possible means 32 Case: 17-15565 Date Filed: 04/08/2020 Page: 33 of 44 of commission, not an element that the pr… ## Opinion text *2258 Justice KENNEDY, concurring. The Court's opinion is required by its precedents, and so I join it, with one reservation set forth below. In no uncertain terms, the Court has held that the word "burglary" in the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) "refers to the elements of the statute of conviction, not to the facts of each defendant's conduct." Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575 , 601, 110 S.Ct. 2143 , 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990). An enhancement is proper, the Court has said, if a defendant is convicted of a crime "having the elements" of generic burglary, "regardless of its exact definition or label" under state law. Id., at 599 , 110 S.Ct. 2143 . See also Descamps v. United States, 570 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 2276 , 2285, 186 L.Ed.2d 438 (2013) ("[T]he categorical approach's central feature [is] a focus on the elements, rather than the facts, of a crime"). In the instant case, then, the Court is correct to conclude that "an elements-based approach remains the law." Ante. at 2255. And it is correct to note further that it would "introduce inconsistency and arbitrariness into our ACCA decisions by here declining to follow its requirements," without reconsidering our precedents as a whole. Ibid. My one reservation to the Court's opinion concerns its reliance on Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 , 120 S.Ct. 2348 , 147 L.Ed.2d 435 (2000). Ante at 2252. In my view, Apprendi was incorrect and, in any event, does not compel the elements based approach. That approach is required only by the Court's statutory precedents, which Congress remains free to overturn. As both dissenting opinions point out, today's decision is a stark illustration of the arbitrary and inequitable results produced by applying an elements based approach to this sentencing scheme. It could not have been Congress' intent for a career offender to escape his statutorily mandated punishment "when the record makes it clear beyond any possible doubt that [he] committed generic burglary." Post, at 2270 (opinion of ALITO, J.). Congress also could not have intended vast sentencing disparities for defendants convicted of identical criminal conduct in different jurisdictions. Congress is capable of amending the ACCA to resolve these concerns. See, e.g., Nijhawan v. Holder, 557 U.S. 29 , 38, 129 S.Ct. 2294 , 174 L.Ed.2d 22 (2009) (interpreting the language Congress used in 8 U.S.C. § 1101 (a)(43)(M)(i) as requiring a "circumstance-specific" rather than categorical approach). But continued congressional inaction in the face of a system that each year proves more unworkable should require this Court to revisit its precedents in an appropriate case. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9824287. Public record. Not legal advice.