ACCA Elements Clause: Intent Must Attach to the Use of Force (Not the Resulting Injury) and Florida Aggravated Assault/Felony Battery and Ohio Domestic Violence Qualify as Violent Felonies

Introduction

In United States v. Mario Delaine (6th Cir. Apr. 2, 2026), the Sixth Circuit addressed whether three prior state convictions triggered the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”) mandatory minimum: (1) Florida aggravated assault (deadly weapon variant, 2012), (2) Florida felony battery (2009), and (3) Ohio felony domestic violence (2019).

The ACCA imposes a 15-year minimum for a felon-in-possession conviction if the defendant has three prior “violent felony” convictions. The central dispute was whether each predicate qualifies under ACCA’s “elements clause,” which covers offenses that have “as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another.” The appeal also surfaced broader interpretive questions: whether sentencing courts may rely on later state-court decisions clarifying elements, and whether ACCA requires an intent to cause injury (as opposed to an intent to use force).

Summary of the Opinion

The Sixth Circuit affirmed the ACCA-enhanced sentence (188 months), holding that all three convictions are “violent felonies” under 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(i). The court concluded:

  • Florida aggravated assault (deadly weapon) categorically requires an intentional threat and thus qualifies.
  • Florida felony battery qualifies because it requires an intentional touching/striking that in fact causes great bodily harm; ACCA does not require intent to cause the injury.
  • Ohio domestic violence (knowingly cause or attempt to cause physical harm) qualifies under binding circuit precedent (United States v. Gatson), and United States v. Taylor does not undermine that conclusion.

Analysis

Precedents Cited

1) The categorical approach framework

  • Borden v. United States and United States v. Taylor are cited for the rule that ACCA’s elements clause uses the categorical approach—courts evaluate the statutory elements in the abstract, not the defendant’s real-world conduct.
  • Johnson v. United States supplies the key actus reus definition: “physical force” means violent force capable of causing physical pain or injury (not mere offensive touching).
  • Stokeling v. United States reinforces that even force causing minimal pain or injury can qualify if it is the sort of force sufficient to overcome resistance in robbery—used here as part of the opinion’s broader “violent force” discussion.
  • Delligatti v. United States is used in two crucial ways: (i) force may qualify even when harm is caused by omission (duty-to-act cases), and (ii) the Court’s more recent formulation that “any force that actually causes injury” qualifies as violent force.

2) Mens rea limits: recklessness excluded; what must be intentional?

  • Borden v. United States is the centerpiece on mens rea: crimes with a mens rea of recklessness (or less) fall outside ACCA’s elements clause. The Sixth Circuit carefully distinguishes between intent regarding the use of force and intent regarding the resulting injury.
  • Leocal v. Ashcroft supports the broader principle that accidental or negligent force does not satisfy “against the person of another” type clauses.
  • Voisine v. United States appears largely through the Borden discussion (volitional “use” of force and debates over recklessness in related contexts).

3) Divisibility and identifying the offense of conviction

  • Descamps v. United States is cited for divisibility principles. The parties agreed Florida aggravated assault is divisible and that Delaine was convicted of the deadly-weapon variant.
  • Mathis v. United States is invoked in the court’s critique of a regime where an offense’s “violent felony” status could oscillate with shifting judicial gloss rather than stable elements.

4) Timing questions: statutory amendments vs. later judicial interpretations

  • Brown v. United States and McNeill v. United States anchor the rule for legislative changes: ACCA looks to the law as it existed when the defendant committed the prior offense.
  • The court contrasts that with the general retroactivity presumption for judicial interpretations, citing DIRECTV, Inc. v. Imburgia, Rivers v. Roadway Express, Inc., and United States v. Sec. Indus. Bank, plus the interpretive-background principle in Astoria Fed. Sav. & Loan Ass'n v. Solimino.
  • The opinion notes Florida postconviction limits—Dettle v. State and State v. Barnum (with a comparison to Teague v. Lane)—but rejects the inference that such limits turn later judicial interpretations into quasi-amendments.
  • The Sixth Circuit acknowledges circuit disagreement, citing United States v. Anderson (7th Cir.) and United States v. Cornette (4th Cir.), and also referencing United States v. Vickers, United States v. Roblero-Ramirez, and United States v. Faust. It ultimately avoids resolving the broad timing dispute because (in its view) Somers v. United States did not change Florida law.

5) Florida aggravated assault intent: Somers and Florida intermediate cases

  • Somers v. United States (Fla. 2022) is treated as authoritative confirmation that Florida assault requires “an intentional threat to do violence to another person.” The Sixth Circuit relies on Somers and also aligns with Somers v. United States (11th Cir. 2023).
  • To reject the claim that pre-2012 Florida law allowed reckless/negligent threats, the court surveys Florida district court cases: Bartley v. State, Pinkney v. State, Lavin v. State, Benitez v. State, Cambell v. State, as well as sufficiency reversals: Denard v. State, Swift v. State, Turner v. State, Dobosh v. State.
  • The court addresses the two cases Delaine emphasized—Kelly v. State and LaValley v. State—and reads them as not eliminating intent, characterizing them as (respectively) permitting intent to be inferred from dangerous conduct and addressing lesser-included offense doctrine. The opinion notes later clarification in Anderson v. State.
  • The court reinforces intent via jury instructions approved in In re Standard Jury Instructions in Crim. Cases and the presumption of accuracy noted in Stephens v. State.
  • The opinion also invokes the “realistic probability” requirement from Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez, as applied in the Sixth Circuit’s en banc decision United States v. Cervenak.

6) Threat mens rea left open

  • The court flags—but does not decide—whether “threatened use of force” in ACCA may permit a recklessness standard, noting Elonis v. United States (re: 18 U.S.C. § 875(c)) and a recent circuit decision United States v. Sheikh. The panel expressly leaves the issue “for another day.”

7) Florida felony battery: injury-causing force and intent-to-injure rejected

  • For the force requirement, the court draws on Delligatti v. United States (“any force that actually causes injury”), and the reasoning expressed in United States v. Castleman (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment) that causing bodily injury necessarily involves force capable of causing it.
  • For mens rea, the panel rejects the argument that Borden v. United States requires intent/knowledge of the injury rather than the force. It also discusses Justice Thomas’s Borden concurrence and related debates about “harm,” referencing his stances in Johnson v. United States, United States v. Castleman, and Voisine v. United States.
  • The court engages the fractured-precedent problem under Marks v. United States, applying Sixth Circuit Marks methodology from EMW Women's Surgical Ctr., P.S.C. v. Friedlander, United States v. Kratt, King v. Palmer, and United States v. Ray, and it cites other courts’ approaches including United States v. Gomez and United States v. Kepler. The panel ultimately deems the Marks dispute unnecessary to resolve because felony battery qualifies under any view.
  • The court aligns with other circuits that have held no separate intent-to-injury requirement exists, citing United States v. Vail-Bailon and Douglas v. United States, and it notes Sixth Circuit support in United States v. Mendez.
  • It distinguishes Ninth Circuit authority by reading United States v. Gomez as turning on lack of intent/knowledge as to the application of force, and it criticizes the unpublished reading in United States v. Vega for misusing a descriptive passage in Borden.

8) Ohio domestic violence: Gatson reaffirmed; Taylor limited

  • The Sixth Circuit treats United States v. Gatson as binding that Ohio Rev. Code § 2919.25(A) satisfies the elements clause, citing multiple subsequent Sixth Circuit applications (including United States v. Alexander, United States v. Mitchell, United States v. Marshall, United States v. Mickel, United States v. Melendez-Perez, United States v. Solomon).
  • On whether United States v. Taylor undermines Gatson, the panel distinguishes Taylor’s attempt-liability analysis for Hobbs Act robbery because Hobbs Act robbery can be completed by threats, whereas Ohio domestic violence requires causing (or attempting to cause) physical harm—so an attempt is an attempt to use force, not merely an attempt to threaten. The court cites attempted-murder analogues: United States v. Parham, United States v. Martin, and out-of-circuit support in United States v. Smith, United States v. Lassiter, United States v. Pastore.
  • The panel rejects a narrow “attempted use” argument based on ordinary meaning (with reference to the Oxford English Dictionary), finding that substantial-step conduct with intent can still be fairly described as “tried to use force.”
  • The court flags (without deciding) a potential divisibility question between completed and attempted domestic violence under Descamps v. United States.
  • On “physiological impairment,” Delaine’s reliance on State v. Vore is foreclosed by Gatson; the panel also notes a doctrinal aside about the scope of circuit stare decisis, citing Brumbach v. United States, Wright v. Spaulding, and the party-presentation principle from United States v. Sineneng-Smith. It reiterates the rule that panels cannot revisit binding precedent absent changed circumstances, citing Valentine v. Francis and United States v. Elbe.
  • The court notes it may reconsider circuit precedent if later Supreme Court authority calls it into doubt, citing United States v. Fields, but finds no such change here.

Legal Reasoning

  1. ACCA requires categorical element-matching. The panel rigorously adheres to the “least culpable conduct” logic associated with Borden v. United States and related cases, but demands a “realistic probability” of prosecution for the hypothesized least-culpable conduct, per United States v. Cervenak and Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez.
  2. Florida aggravated assault: intent is elemental, not optional. The offense text requires an “intentional, unlawful threat,” and Somers v. United States confirms it. The court’s extensive pre-2012 Florida case survey functions as a categorical “reality check” against claims of reckless/negligent coverage.
  3. Florida felony battery: injury establishes violent force; intent attaches to force, not injury. By requiring “great bodily harm, permanent disability, or permanent disfigurement,” the statute necessarily involves injury-causing force, and Delligatti v. United States bolsters the proposition that injury-causing force qualifies as “violent force.” On mens rea, the panel refuses to graft a “specific intent to injure” requirement onto the elements clause, finding the clause’s grammar and Borden’s operative reasoning focus on the defendant’s volitional deployment of force “against” another person.
  4. Ohio domestic violence: knowing harm/attempted harm equals force under Gatson; Taylor is not a general attempt carve-out. The panel treats Taylor as a statute-specific attempt analysis (attempted Hobbs Act robbery) that does not undermine attempt crimes whose completed version necessarily entails force.

Impact

  • Strengthening ACCA predicates in the Sixth Circuit. The decision fortifies the government’s ability to use Florida aggravated assault (deadly weapon), Florida felony battery, and Ohio domestic violence as ACCA predicates.
  • Clarifying mens rea focus for the elements clause. The opinion squarely rejects an “intent-to-injure” overlay and centers the inquiry on intent/knowledge regarding the application of force to a person. This reasoning will likely influence future challenges to assault/battery statutes that require intentional contact but not specific intent as to injury severity.
  • Limiting Taylor’s spillover to other attempt crimes. By distinguishing Taylor and endorsing attempted-murder analogies, the court signals a restrictive view of Taylor-based challenges where the completed offense necessarily entails force.
  • Timing-of-interpretation issues remain partly open, but with strong signals. Although the panel avoids deciding whether later judicial interpretations can be disregarded, its discussion emphasizes the traditional retroactivity presumption for judicial interpretations and critiques the administrability of an ACCA regime where predicate status fluctuates with intermediate appellate decisions.
  • Threat mens rea question flagged. By reserving whether “threatened use” in ACCA might tolerate recklessness (in light of Elonis v. United States), the panel leaves room for future litigation on threat-based predicates.

Complex Concepts Simplified

ACCA (Armed Career Criminal Act)
A federal sentencing law that imposes a 15-year minimum for felons in possession of firearms who have three qualifying prior convictions.
Elements clause
The ACCA definition that covers crimes whose legal elements require the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against another person.
Categorical approach
A method that compares statutory elements (not underlying facts). If the statute covers any non-qualifying conduct in a realistic way, it fails categorically.
Divisible statute
A statute listing alternative crimes (elements, not means). Courts may identify which alternative formed the conviction and then apply the categorical analysis to that alternative.
“Violent force”
Force capable of causing physical pain or injury (not mere offensive touching), as defined in Johnson v. United States and elaborated by later cases like Delligatti v. United States.
Mens rea (state of mind)
The required mental state. Under Borden v. United States, recklessness is not enough for ACCA’s elements clause. This opinion emphasizes that intent/knowledge must attach to the use of force, not necessarily to the resulting injury.
Marks rule
A doctrine for identifying the controlling opinion when the Supreme Court issues a fragmented decision; the Sixth Circuit discusses its application to Borden but does not need to resolve it here.
Realistic probability test
A requirement that a defendant show more than a theoretical possibility that the state would apply a statute to non-qualifying conduct.

Conclusion

United States v. Mario Delaine reinforces a practical, text-centered application of ACCA’s elements clause. The Sixth Circuit held that Florida aggravated assault (deadly weapon), Florida felony battery, and Ohio felony domestic violence categorically qualify as “violent felonies.” Most significantly, the court rejects the notion that ACCA requires a defendant to intend (or know) the injury resulting from force; it is enough that the defendant intentionally or knowingly directs force at a person and the statute requires injury of the requisite kind. The opinion also narrows attempts to extend United States v. Taylor beyond its specific context and leaves targeted doctrinal questions—especially about threat mens rea and the role of later judicial interpretations—available for future cases.