Physical-Restraint Enhancement Requires Resentencing Under the Clarified Contact-or-Confinement Standard

Case: United States v. Johnson Saint-Louis, No. 24-13084
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
Date: October 28, 2026
Disposition: Convictions affirmed; sentence vacated and case remanded for resentencing.

Precedential status: The opinion is designated “NOT FOR PUBLICATION.” It applies existing circuit authority rather than establishing a new, independently binding circuit rule. Its principal significance is its application of the retroactively clarifying physical-restraint guideline amendment to a pending sentencing appeal.

1. Introduction

This appeal concerned the evidentiary, constitutional, and sentencing consequences of an armed ATM robbery. Johnson Saint-Louis challenged his convictions for armed bank robbery under 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a) and (d), and for brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)(ii). The United States defended both the convictions and the resulting sentence.

The Eleventh Circuit rejected Saint-Louis’s challenges to the identification evidence, the prosecutor’s closing argument, and bank robbery’s classification as a crime of violence. It nevertheless vacated his sentence because the district court had applied the physical-restraint enhancement under an outdated interpretation of U.S.S.G. § 2B3.1(b)(4)(B).

The opinion illustrates two distinct appellate principles: a conviction may remain sound despite challenges to circumstantial evidence and prosecutorial rhetoric, while an intervening clarification of the Sentencing Guidelines may independently require resentencing.

2. Factual and Procedural Background

The robbery and identification evidence

The charges arose from a February 2021 robbery at a Bank of America ATM in Longwood, Florida. After the ATM generated a cash-dispenser-malfunction alert, a technician arrived to repair an unusually damaged sensor. The repair required access to the cash vault.

A masked, armed robber approached the technician, took him by the shoulder, placed a gun against the back of his head, directed him to kneel beside his work van, and ordered him to remain there. The robber took the technician’s telephone and keys, removed cash from the ATM, and fled.

The government’s identification case was substantially circumstantial. Saint-Louis was a former ATM technician. Records linked his transactions at the Longwood ATM to several malfunction alerts, including the alert immediately preceding the robbery. The government also introduced evidence of similarly executed ATM robberies and scouting activity involving other locations. The district court admitted that evidence for identity, modus operandi, motive, and intent.

Searches of vehicles associated with Saint-Louis produced a handgun with identifying markings covered by black tape, dark clothing, gloves, masks, a backpack, bank receipts, and handwritten assessments of ATM locations. After his arrest, Saint-Louis waived his Miranda rights and participated in an FBI interview.

Closing argument and sentencing

During closing argument, the prosecutor emphasized Saint-Louis’s inability to explain suspicious travel, ATM notes, and the combination of items found in his possession. Saint-Louis later argued that these remarks shifted the burden of proof and improperly commented on his failure to testify.

The jury convicted him on both counts. The district court adopted a Guidelines calculation that included a two-level physical-restraint enhancement because he had pointed a firearm at the technician while issuing commands. The resulting advisory range for the robbery count was 87 to 108 months. The court imposed 87 months for that count and a consecutive 84 months for the firearm count, totaling 171 months.

3. Summary of the Opinion

  1. Sufficient identification evidence: The transactions, malfunction alerts, similar robberies, scouting records, and recovered equipment permitted a reasonable jury to identify Saint-Louis as the Longwood robber.
  2. No reversible prosecutorial misconduct: The challenged remarks principally evaluated Saint-Louis’s interview statements and the logical implications of the evidence. Even assuming impropriety, the strong evidence and burden-of-proof instructions defeated the required showing of prejudice.
  3. No cumulative error: Saint-Louis established neither multiple errors requiring aggregation nor a combined effect impairing his substantial rights.
  4. A valid crime-of-violence predicate: Binding precedent treated § 2113(a) as divisible between bank robbery and bank extortion. The indictment and jury instructions established a robbery conviction qualifying under § 924(c)’s elements clause.
  5. Sentencing error requiring remand: Under United States v. Brown, the clarified physical-restraint guideline applied retroactively. The district court’s reliance on the former gunpoint-compliance interpretation required resentencing under the proper standard.

4. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited and Their Influence

Evidence sufficiency and cumulative error

United States v. Chun, 187 F.4th 1336 (11th Cir. 2026)

This decision supplied both the de novo standard of review and the substantive sufficiency test: whether a rational factfinder could find the essential elements beyond a reasonable doubt. Its requirement to view the evidence and reasonable credibility choices favorably to the verdict prevented the appellate court from retrying the identification issue. A guilty verdict needed to be reasonable, not inevitable.

United States v. Defilippis, 174 F.4th 1291 (11th Cir. 2026)

The court relied on this case for the principle that jurors may choose among reasonable interpretations of the evidence and that the government need not eliminate every hypothesis of innocence. That principle answered the suggestion that circumstantial identification evidence was insufficient merely because alternative explanations could be proposed.

United States v. Mapson, 96 F.4th 1323 (11th Cir. 2024)

United States v. Mapson confirmed that circumstantial evidence may establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, while insisting that the inference of guilt rest on reason rather than speculation. The repeated association between Saint-Louis’s ATM use and malfunction-triggered robberies supplied the necessary evidentiary connection.

United States v. Daniels, 91 F.4th 1083 (11th Cir. 2024)

This authority governed cumulative-error review. It required an assessment of whether combined trial errors affected substantial rights, but also established that no cumulative error exists when there is no error or only one error. Because the court found sufficient evidence and no reversible prosecutorial misconduct, aggregation supplied no independent basis for relief.

United States v. Saint-Louis, No. 23-12379, 2024 WL 4948291 (11th Cir. Dec. 3, 2024)

The opinion cited this earlier appeal to note that Saint-Louis’s Tallahassee robbery conviction had been affirmed. Its function was factual and procedural: it confirmed the status of one similar robbery introduced at trial, rather than supplying a new legal test for this appeal.

Prosecutorial argument and the right to remain silent

United States v. Eckhardt, 466 F.3d 938 (11th Cir. 2006), and United States v. Frank, 599 F.3d 1221 (11th Cir. 2010)

United States v. Eckhardt characterized prosecutorial-misconduct claims as mixed questions of law and fact ordinarily reviewed de novo. United States v. Frank supplied the controlling qualification for an unpreserved claim: plain-error review. The court ultimately assessed Saint-Louis’s challenge under that more demanding framework.

United States v. Merrill, 513 F.3d 1293 (11th Cir. 2008)

This case required both improper remarks and prejudice to substantial rights. Prejudice meant a reasonable probability that the trial’s outcome would have differed without the comments. It supported the court’s alternative conclusion that even arguably improper statements did not justify reversal.

United States v. Hernandez, 145 F.3d 1433 (11th Cir. 1998)

This precedent supplied several related rules: prosecutors generally may not shift the burden of proof; comments on defense counsel’s failure to explain evidence are not necessarily comments on the defendant’s silence; and prejudice must be evaluated in the context of the entire trial. Its recognition that explicit burden-of-proof instructions diminish prejudice was especially important here.

United States v. Chirinos, 112 F.3d 1089 (11th Cir. 1997), and United States v. McGarity, 669 F.3d 1218 (11th Cir. 2012)

United States v. Chirinos established the prohibition against prosecutorial comment on a defendant’s failure to testify. United States v. McGarity provided the operative test: whether the statement was manifestly intended to address that failure, or whether the jury would naturally and necessarily understand it that way. The court did not find that characterization persuasive for the challenged remarks.

United States v. Beechum, 582 F.2d 898 (5th Cir. 1978) (en banc)

This predecessor-court decision furnished the closest analogy. There, a prosecutor’s discussion of the defendant’s post-arrest response was treated as an appraisal of what he said, not a comment on protected silence. Likewise, several remarks in Saint-Louis’s case assessed explanations he actually gave during his FBI interview.

United States v. Rutkowski, 814 F.2d 594 (11th Cir. 1987), and United States v. Diaz, 190 F.3d 1247 (11th Cir. 1999)

These cases distinguished permissible evidentiary inference from impermissible reliance on a defendant’s failure to testify. United States v. Diaz, for example, permitted the prosecutor’s question, “Where else would $12,000 come from?” Together, they supported viewing the prosecutor’s questions about suspicious equipment and ATM notes as arguments about the evidence rather than demands that Saint-Louis prove innocence.

Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966)

This case appeared in a footnote identifying the rights Saint-Louis waived before his FBI interview. The court did not decide a separate challenge to the waiver or the interview’s admissibility. Its relevance was contextual: the prosecutor discussed statements made during that interview.

Bank robbery as a crime of violence

United States v. Solomon, 136 F.4th 1310 (11th Cir. 2025)

This case established de novo review of whether an offense qualifies as a crime of violence under § 924(c). The classification was therefore a legal question, not a discretionary sentencing determination.

United States v. Vega-Castillo, 540 F.3d 1235 (11th Cir. 2008)

The court invoked the prior-precedent rule: a panel must follow binding circuit decisions unless the Supreme Court or the circuit sitting en banc overrules them. This rule made the existing bank-robbery authorities controlling despite Saint-Louis’s contrary statutory argument.

United States v. Armstrong, 122 F.4th 1278 (11th Cir. 2024)

This was the central divisibility precedent. It held that § 2113(a) establishes distinct bank-robbery and bank-extortion offenses, permitting use of the modified categorical approach. It also identified the limited documents courts may consult to determine which offense produced the conviction. Here, the indictment and jury instructions identified robbery by force and violence or intimidation.

In re Sams, 830 F.3d 1234 (11th Cir. 2016)

Once the robbery alternative was identified, this precedent supplied the classification: bank robbery under § 2113(a), committed by force and violence or intimidation, qualifies under § 924(c)(3)(A)’s use-of-force clause. United States v. Armstrong had confirmed its continuing validity.

The physical-restraint enhancement

United States v. Brown, __ F.4th __, No. 23-13326, 2026 WL 3023730 (11th Cir. Oct. 8, 2026)

This decision controlled the sentencing result. Earlier circuit law interpreted physical restraint broadly to include circumstances leaving a victim no alternative but compliance, including gunpoint commands. A 2025 amendment instead required restriction of movement through physical contact or confinement, with examples such as being tied, bound, or locked up.

United States v. Brown held that the amendment clarified rather than substantively changed the guideline and therefore applied retroactively. It further held that reliance on the former standard could constitute plain error affecting substantial rights where it produced an incorrectly elevated Guidelines range. Saint-Louis’s sentence rested on the same superseded interpretation.

Rosales-Mireles v. United States, 585 U.S. 129 (2018)

This Supreme Court decision supported correction of prejudicial Guidelines errors. An erroneous higher range ordinarily creates a reasonable probability of unnecessary imprisonment, and a plain Guidelines error affecting substantial rights ordinarily warrants relief. Nothing in Saint-Louis’s sentencing record established that the district court would have selected the same sentence independently of the range.

B. Legal Reasoning

1. Circumstantial evidence formed a coherent identification case

The court assessed the evidence cumulatively rather than treating each circumstance in isolation. Saint-Louis’s technical background, ATM transactions preceding unusual malfunctions, similar incidents elsewhere, location notes, and recovered equipment reinforced one another.

The governing distinction was between an inference supported by connected facts and speculation unsupported by evidence. The jury could reasonably infer that the malfunctions were part of a plan to draw technicians to accessible cash vaults. The court did not require the government to produce an uncovered facial identification or eliminate every innocent explanation.

This appellate sufficiency rule did not transfer the trial burden to Saint-Louis. The government still had to prove identity beyond a reasonable doubt; the appellate question was whether a rational jury could find that burden satisfied.

2. Discussing a defendant’s statements differs from exploiting silence

The court distinguished comments evaluating Saint-Louis’s interview answers from comments asking the jury to penalize him for not testifying. Several challenged statements concerned his expressed inability to explain travel or ATM notes. Under the cited cases, criticizing those answers was not necessarily an infringement of the right to remain silent.

The broader questions about an “innocent explanation” were treated as arguments about logical inferences from the evidence. The opinion does not authorize prosecutors to demand proof of innocence whenever their case appears strong. Its conclusion depended on context.

The court also supplied an independent prejudice analysis. The identification evidence was strong, and the district court expressly instructed the jury that Saint-Louis had no obligation to prove innocence or produce evidence. Those circumstances defeated the showing necessary for reversal even if the prosecutor’s language had crossed the line.

3. Statutory elements, not the robbery’s dramatic facts, controlled § 924(c)

Saint-Louis argued that § 2113(a) was indivisible and therefore could not qualify as a crime of violence. Binding precedent foreclosed that premise. Because the statute separately defined robbery and extortion, the court could consult approved conviction documents to identify the relevant offense.

The indictment and instructions established robbery by force and violence or intimidation. That offense qualified under existing circuit law. The court therefore did not need to determine whether every alternative within § 2113(a), including extortion, independently satisfied the force requirement.

Although the evidence showed an actual firearm threat, that factual severity was not the legal basis for the categorical classification. The qualifying elements of the identified robbery offense supplied the basis.

4. A clarified guideline displaced the former gunpoint-compliance rule

The sentencing ruling turned on the legal standard used, not simply on whether the technician experienced fear or obeyed commands. The presentence report supported the enhancement by pointing to the firearm and orders—the rationale accepted under the circuit’s former interpretation.

Under United States v. Brown, the district court instead had to apply the clarified requirement that movement be restricted through physical contact or confinement. Because the amendment was clarifying, it governed this pending appeal despite the district court’s reliance on then-existing precedent.

The remand did not conclusively establish that the enhancement could never apply to these facts. The trial narrative included shoulder contact and forced positioning beside the van. The appellate court did not definitively evaluate those circumstances under the amended language. It required resentencing under the correct standard, leaving the district court to make the appropriate assessment.

Nor did the court prescribe a replacement sentence. Its concern was that the erroneous enhancement had elevated the advisory range and potentially influenced the chosen term. The record contained no sufficient indication that the same sentence would have been imposed regardless of that range.

C. Potential Impact

  • More precise restraint findings: Sentencing courts must identify how physical contact or confinement restricted movement, rather than rely solely on armed intimidation or compelled compliance.
  • Relief in pending appeals: The opinion illustrates the practical effect of treating a guideline amendment as clarifying. That conclusion does not itself establish an unrestricted right to reopen every final sentence.
  • Continued viability of robbery predicates: Under existing Eleventh Circuit precedent, convictions for § 2113(a) robbery by force and violence or intimidation remain valid § 924(c) predicates.
  • Context-sensitive closing-argument review: Prosecutors may evaluate admitted statements and argue evidentiary inferences, but language suggesting a defendant must explain suspicious circumstances remains sensitive to the constitutional boundary.
  • Limits on the decision’s reach: The opinion did not separately resolve an appellate challenge to the admission of the other-robbery evidence. Its sufficiency analysis should not be treated as a general admissibility ruling.

Because the opinion is unpublished, its broader value is principally persuasive and illustrative. The binding legal foundations remain the published authorities it applies, especially United States v. Brown, United States v. Armstrong, and In re Sams.

5. Complex Concepts Simplified

Circumstantial evidence
Evidence that supports a conclusion indirectly. A repeated pattern of ATM transactions followed by malfunctions can help identify a robber even without a witness recognizing an uncovered face.
Burden shifting
Improperly suggesting that the defendant must prove innocence. The prosecution always retains the obligation to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Plain error
A demanding framework for reviewing an issue not properly preserved below. It generally requires a clear error affecting substantial rights and a sufficient reason for appellate correction.
Cumulative error
The possibility that multiple trial errors, considered together, made the trial unfair even if each alone would not justify reversal. It does not substitute for identifying actual errors.
Divisible statute and modified categorical approach
A divisible statute defines alternative crimes. A court may consult limited conviction records to identify which crime was involved, then examine that crime’s elements rather than freely reconstructing the defendant’s conduct.
Clarifying amendment
An amendment treated as explaining a guideline’s meaning rather than creating a new substantive rule. Here, that classification allowed the amended restraint standard to govern the pending appeal.
Vacatur and remand
Setting aside a ruling and returning the case to the lower court. Saint-Louis’s sentence was set aside for reconsideration; his convictions remained intact.

6. Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit preserved Saint-Louis’s convictions while requiring a legally correct sentencing process. The circumstantial identification evidence supported the verdict, the prosecutor’s remarks did not warrant reversal, and binding precedent sustained the bank-robbery predicate for the firearm conviction.

The principal sentencing lesson is narrower but consequential: the physical-restraint enhancement must be assessed under the clarified contact-or-confinement standard, not the former rule equating gunpoint compliance with restraint. The opinion requires that reassessment without predetermining the enhancement’s ultimate application or the replacement sentence.