Hobbs Act Robbery Requires Force Before or During the Taking, Not Merely in Escape

I. Introduction

In United States v. Jy'Quale Grable, the Eleventh Circuit addressed a timing question embedded in the Hobbs Act’s definition of robbery: whether violence used only after property has been surreptitiously taken and carried away can satisfy § 1951(b)(1)’s requirement that the “taking” occur “by means of” actual or threatened force, violence, or fear of injury.

The parties were the United States (plaintiff-appellee) and Jy'Quale Samari Grable (defendant-appellant). The prosecution theory treated a plan to steal marijuana as a Hobbs Act robbery culminating in a fatal shooting when the victims attempted to detain Grable after the marijuana had already been removed from the apartment by a co-conspirator.

The key legal issues were:

• Statutory interpretation: What does § 1951(b)(1)’s “by means of actual or threatened force” require as to the temporal relationship between force and the taking?
• Sufficiency of the evidence: Given the evidence showed force only after the marijuana was carried away, was there proof beyond a reasonable doubt of Hobbs Act robbery under § 1951(a)?
• Derivative liability: Could the § 924 conviction premised on Hobbs Act robbery stand if the robbery conviction fell?

II. Summary of the Opinion

The panel (Jordan, J.) reversed Grable’s substantive Hobbs Act robbery conviction (Count 2) and vacated the firearm/murder count (Count 3) because Count 3 was expressly premised on the robbery alleged in Count 2. The court left untouched Grable’s Hobbs Act conspiracy conviction (Count 1), which he did not appeal.

Rule announced: “A taking of property does not constitute robbery under the Hobbs Act unless force or threatened force is used before or during the taking.”

Applying that rule, the court held that the marijuana was already stolen—and the theft complete—when Grable later used deadly force on the balcony. Because the theft was not achieved “by means of” force, the later shooting could not retroactively transform the completed theft into Hobbs Act robbery.

III. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited (and How They Drove the Result)

1. Standards of review and evidentiary posture

• United States v. Mapson, 96 F.4th 1323, 1328 (11th Cir. 2024): supplied the lens for reciting facts “in the light most favorable to the jury verdict,” underscoring that the reversal turned on legal insufficiency under the correct statutory meaning—not on factfinding.
• United States v. Ochoa, 941 F.3d 1074, 1102 n.18 (11th Cir. 2019) (quoting United States v. Baldwin, 774 F.3d 711, 721 (11th Cir. 2014)): anchored the de novo review of sufficiency, allowing the panel to conclude that even crediting the government’s proof, the statutory “robbery” element failed as a matter of law.
• United States v. Ortega-Torres, 174 F.3d 1199, 1200 (11th Cir. 1999): supported de novo review of statutory interpretation, critical because the appeal hinged on the meaning of “by means of” in § 1951(b)(1).

2. Text-first interpretation and “ordinary public meaning” at enactment

• Lackey v. Stinnie, 604 U.S. 192, 199 (2025): supplied the modern Supreme Court directive to “begin with the text,” framing the analysis as a textual inquiry into § 1951(b)(1).
• Bostock v. Clayton Cnty., 590 U.S. 644, 654 (2020): justified looking to “ordinary public meaning” at the time of enactment (1946), preparing the ground for common-law meaning and contemporaneous legal dictionaries.
• Burgess v. United States, 553 U.S. 134, 129-30 (2008): emphasized that statutory definitions control. The Hobbs Act includes its own definition of “robbery,” so the court treated § 1951(b)(1) as the governing semantic source.

3. “By means of” as a causal-and-method requirement

• Loughrin v. United States, 573 U.S. 351, 363 (2014): did the most work doctrinally. The panel imported Loughrin’s explanation that “by means of” requires the end result be achieved through the specified means—more than an “oblique, indirect, and incidental” connection. This narrowed the government’s theory: later violence associated with escape or confrontation is not enough if it did not accomplish the taking.
• Scheidler v. Nat'l Org. for Women, Inc., 547 U.S. 9, 16 (2006): reinforced that violence “unrelated to robbery or extortion” falls outside the Hobbs Act, supporting the panel’s refusal to treat post-taking violence as automatically part of “robbery.”

4. The Hobbs Act’s “robbery” element and circuit authority

• United States v. Taylor, 480 F.3d 1025, 1026-27 (11th Cir. 2007) (quoting United States v. Rodriguez, 218 F.3d 1243, 1244 (11th Cir. 2000)): restated the two elements of substantive Hobbs Act liability (“robbery and an effect on interstate commerce”), focusing the appeal tightly on whether “robbery” was proven.
• United States v. Smith, 156 F.3d 1046, 1056 (10th Cir. 1998): provided persuasive authority directly rejecting the “escape-force converts theft to Hobbs Act robbery” theory. The Eleventh Circuit agreed with Smith that force used during escape after a taking does not satisfy § 1951(b)(1).

5. Completion of theft/larceny and the government’s “not complete” argument

• Crabb v. Zerbst, 99 F.2d 562, 564 (5th Cir. 1938), Robinson v. United States, 143 F.2d 276, 278 (10th Cir. 1944), and Armour Packing Co. v. United States, 153 F. 1, 5 (8th Cir. 1907): were invoked to rebut the government’s claim that the theft was incomplete until Grable personally possessed the marijuana. These cases reflect the common-law understanding that the “taking and carrying away” completes larceny once the owner is deprived of possession.

6. Conspiracy distinct from the substantive offense

• United States v. Dynalectric Co., 859 F.2d 1559, 1564 (11th Cir. 1988): explained that conspiracies continue until objectives succeed or are abandoned—useful for acknowledging that Count 1 might persist even if the theft was complete.
• Iannelli v. United States, 420 U.S. 770, 777 (1975): supplied the principle that conspiracy and the completed offense are separate crimes, preventing the government from bootstrapping conspiracy continuation into proof of a completed substantive robbery.

7. Common-law incorporation at enactment; 1946 understanding controls

• Sekhar v. United States, 570 U.S. 729, 732 (2013): provided the interpretive canon that Congress is presumed to incorporate well-settled common-law meanings absent indication otherwise.
• Carter v. United States, 530 U.S. 255, 275 (2000) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting): was used for the encapsulation “robbery meant larceny plus force,” aligning with the panel’s view that force is an aggravating means used to effect the taking, not merely an after-the-fact development.
• Norris v. United States, 152 F.2d 808 (5th Cir. 1946): functioned as especially weighty historical authority (and binding within the Eleventh Circuit’s inherited Fifth Circuit precedent). Norris stated that the violence or fear “must be at the time of the act or immediately preceding it,” effectively previewing the rule the panel formally announced.

8. Rejecting “modern robbery” expansion and resisting purpose-based rewriting

• United States v. Jones, 878 F.3d 10, 18-19 (2d Cir. 2017): was cited descriptively to show that many states have broadened robbery to include force during flight—highlighting that such an approach is a policy choice not necessarily embedded in the Hobbs Act’s 1946 text.
• Daker v. Comm'r, Ga. Dep't of Corr., 820 F.3d 1278, 1286 (11th Cir. 2016): anchored the methodological commitment: interpret what Congress enacted, not what courts might prefer if aiming to match modern intuitions about robbery.

9. Distinguishing bank robbery “escape phase” cases

• United States v. Willis, 559 F.2d 443, 444 n.5 (5th Cir. 1977): was invoked by the government to analogize bank robbery’s continuation through escape. The panel rejected the analogy as mismatched to Hobbs Act text and further noted that Grable was not a late-joining escape participant (a factual distinction captured in the opinion’s footnote).

10. Limiting the government’s reliance on “possession/dominion” theory

• United States v. Garcia-Caraveo, 586 F.3d 1230, 1236 (10th Cir. 2009): was distinguished because it concerned whether a California robbery was a “crime of violence” under U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2, not Hobbs Act robbery’s elements. Importantly, Garcia-Caraveo itself acknowledged the common-law timing limitation and did not undercut United States v. Smith.

11. Downstream § 924 issues: not reached, but procedurally resolved

• Lora v. United States, 599 U.S. 453 (2023): was raised by Grable to challenge consecutive sentencing under § 924, but the panel found the issue unnecessary because Count 3 fell with the predicate robbery.
• United States v. Wiley, 78 F.4th 1355, 1363 (11th Cir. 2023): was used to explain that aiding and abetting Hobbs Act robbery is a crime of violence under circuit precedent; however, Wiley also requires proof that “someone committed the substantive offense,” which failed here because there was no Hobbs Act robbery at all.

12. Sentencing/judgment housekeeping (contextual but mooted by vacatur)

• United States v. Bates, 213 F.3d 1336, 1340 (11th Cir. 2000) and United States v. Mosley, 31 F.4th 1332, 1335-36 (11th Cir. 2022): were cited for the general rule that an unambiguous oral pronouncement controls over a conflicting written judgment. The panel noted the point but, after reversing Counts 2 and 3, left only the Count 1 sentence and remanded to correct the judgment accordingly.

B. Legal Reasoning (How the Court Got There)

The court’s reasoning proceeded in three tightly connected steps.

1. The statutory hook: “by means of” links force to the taking itself

The operative statutory definition—“taking or obtaining ... by means of actual or threatened force”—was read as requiring that force be part of the method used to accomplish the taking. Relying on Loughrin v. United States, the panel treated “by means of” as demanding more than but-for causation; force must be an instrumentality of the taking, not merely an event that occurs after the property has already been successfully removed.

2. Application to the facts: the theft was complete before the shooting

The evidence, even viewed favorably to the verdict, established a sequence: Smith surreptitiously took the marijuana and left; only minutes later—after the victims confronted and attempted to detain Grable—Grable shot them. Because the marijuana had already been “taken and carried away,” the later shooting did not help accomplish the taking. The violence therefore could not satisfy § 1951(b)(1)’s definition of robbery.

3. Historical confirmation: 1946 common-law robbery required contemporaneous force

The panel then reinforced the text-based conclusion with enactment-era meaning. Invoking Sekhar v. United States and contemporaneous sources (including Black’s Law Dictionary (3d ed. 1933) and Norris v. United States), the court explained that common-law robbery required violence or fear at the time of or immediately preceding the taking. While modern statutes and the Model Penal Code extend robbery to force used in flight, the court held that the Hobbs Act—enacted in 1946—did not adopt that later-expanding conception.

C. Impact

1. Narrowing substantive Hobbs Act robbery in the Eleventh Circuit

The opinion establishes a clear, administrable temporal rule: post-taking force alone is insufficient. In future cases, prosecutors in the Eleventh Circuit must show that force or threats were used to effectuate the taking itself (or at least that the taking was not already complete when force occurred).

2. Charging consequences: theft-plus-violence is not automatically “Hobbs Act robbery”

Fact patterns involving shoplifting-like takings followed by violent resistance, escape, or retaliation can no longer be assumed to satisfy § 1951(b)(1) in this circuit. The government may need to rely more heavily on:

• Hobbs Act conspiracy (as here), where the agreement and overt conduct may be provable even if the substantive robbery element fails;
• Other federal homicide/firearms statutes not dependent on “robbery” as defined in § 1951(b)(1); and/or
• State robbery/homicide prosecutions where “modern robbery” statutes cover force in flight.

3. § 924 ripple effects: predicate sensitivity

The court vacated the § 924 count because it was expressly premised on the Hobbs Act robbery in Count 2. The decision highlights a recurring structural feature of federal firearm counts: when the predicate offense fails, the firearm conviction often collapses with it. The court also clarified that even where United States v. Wiley treats aiding and abetting Hobbs Act robbery as a crime of violence, the government still must prove that the underlying Hobbs Act robbery occurred.

4. Potential for inter-circuit divergence

By insisting on the common-law timing constraint and rejecting “force in flight” as sufficient under the Hobbs Act’s definition, the Eleventh Circuit positions itself against the gravitational pull of modern robbery statutes and may sharpen disagreements among circuits in closely analogous “escape-force” scenarios. That, in turn, increases the likelihood of future Supreme Court attention if other circuits adopt a broader reading of § 1951(b)(1).

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Hobbs Act robbery (18 U.S.C. § 1951): A federal crime requiring a “taking” of property “by means of” force/threats and an effect on commerce. The key here is that the force must be the method of taking, not an after-the-fact event.
• Larceny/theft vs. robbery: Theft is taking property without permission; robbery is theft plus force or threats used to make the taking happen. If the property is already gone when force occurs, this decision treats it as theft plus later violence—not robbery.
• “By means of”: A causal-and-method phrase: the result (taking) must be achieved through the method (force/threat). A later shooting that does not help obtain the property is not “by means of” the taking.
• Common-law incorporation: Courts presume Congress used established common-law meanings when it legislated in 1946, unless Congress clearly indicated a different meaning.
• Sufficiency of the evidence / Rule 29: Even if jurors believed all the witnesses, the conviction cannot stand if the proven facts do not satisfy the statute’s elements as properly interpreted.
• Predicate offense for § 924: Some firearm offenses require a qualifying underlying crime (here, Hobbs Act robbery). If the underlying crime is not proved, the firearm conviction falls.

V. Conclusion

United States v. Jy'Quale Grable announces a bright-line construction of Hobbs Act robbery: force or threatened force must occur before or during the taking. By anchoring its interpretation in the statutory phrase “by means of” and the 1946 common-law understanding of robbery—reinforced by Norris v. United States—the Eleventh Circuit rejected the modern “force in flight” expansion that many states have adopted.

Practically, the decision narrows substantive Hobbs Act robbery prosecutions in the circuit, heightens the importance of proving contemporaneous force or threats, and underscores the vulnerability of § 924 counts when the pleaded predicate is not established under the statute’s actual elements.