Felix Sutherland v. Janet Reno, Attorney General of the United States

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that the Massachusetts crime of sexual assault and battery of a minor is a crime of violence under § 16(b) because it “involves a non-consensual act upon another person”
• finding that “any and all convictions” under the predicate statute at issue there (indecent non-consensual touching of a person over the age of 14) “would, by their nature, necessarily involve a substantial risk that physical force may be used”
• perpetrator “necessarily” risks having to use force in committing indecent nonconsensual touching of a person over the age of 14
• indecent assault and battery on a person over the age of fourteen which requires the vic- tim’s actual non-consent as an element
• indecent assault and battery under Massachusetts law is crime of violence; “the non-consent of the victim is the touchstone for determining” whether a given offense involves substantial risk that physical force may be used in commission of offense
• “[W]here the relevant statutory provision is silent or ambiguous, ‘a court may not substitute its own construction of a statutory provision for a reasonable interpretation made by the administrator of an agency.’” (quoting Chevron, 467 U.S. at 843-44)

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).