In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 16‐3373
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff‐Appellee,
v.
JUSTIN WILLIAMS,
Defendant‐Appellant.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 13 CR 930‐2 — Rebecca R. Pallmeyer, Judge.
____________________
ARGUED MAY 16, 2017 — DECIDED JULY 27, 2017
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Before EASTERBROOK, SYKES, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.
HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. A person may commit the federal
crime of bank robbery “by force and violence, or by intimida‐
tion.” 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a). The issue in this appeal is whether
the federal offense of bank robbery under 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a)
qualifies as a “crime of violence” under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). We
hold that it does. We have held that the so‐called “residual
clause” in the § 924(c) definition of a crime of violence is un‐
constitutionally vague, United States v. Cardena, 842 F.3d 959,
2 No. 16‐3373
996 (7th Cir. 2016), but even bank robbery fits easily into the
“elements clause” of the definition of a crime of violence be‐
cause even when committed “by intimidation,” it has “as an
element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical
force against the person or property of another.” See 18 U.S.C.
§ 924(c)(3)(A).1
On December 4, 2013, defendant‐appellant Justin Williams
and Malcolm Carpenter entered a Bank of America branch in
Homewood, Illinois. Each was carrying a nine‐millimeter
handgun. Williams pointed his gun at several employees and
forced them to the ground while Carpenter ordered two em‐
ployees to open the vault and to fill a bag with money. The
robbers left with more than $80,000 in cash. The next day, the
two men were located in the gray Volvo described by wit‐
nesses as the getaway car. Inside the car, police also found the
missing cash, the bank’s anti‐theft devices, and two nine‐mil‐
limeter handguns.
Williams and Carpenter were charged with bank robbery
in violation of § 2113(a). The indictment that followed added
a second count for using a firearm in the course of the robbery
under § 924(c) and a third count (later dropped) for being a
felon in possession of a firearm under § 922(g)(1).
Williams moved to dismiss the § 924(c) charge. He argued
that federal bank robbery is not a crime of violence under
§ 924(c)(3)(A) because § 2113(a) provides that bank robbery
can be committed “by intimidation,” as well as “by force and
1 The Supreme Court will hear re‐argument on October 2, 2017, in a
case that asks whether the near‐identical residual clause in 18 U.S.C. § 16
is unconstitutionally vague. See Sessions v. Dimaya, No 15‐1498 (argued
Jan. 17, 2017).
No. 16‐3373 3
violence.” His theory is that a robber can “intimidate” a vic‐
tim without intending to do so, and an intentional use or
threat of force is essential for a crime of violence. The district
court denied the motion, finding that bank robbery is a crime
of violence under the elements clause because under Seventh
Circuit precedent, “intimidation means threatened force ca‐
pable of causing bodily harm and therefore constitutes threat‐
ened ‘violent force’ under § 924(c)(3)(A).” United States v. Car‐
penter, No. 13 CR 930, 2016 WL 878631, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 8,
2016) (citation omitted) (emphasis in original); see also id., cit‐
ing United States v. Gordon, 642 F.3d 596, 598 (7th Cir. 2011)
(“Intimidation exists when a bank robber’s words and actions
would cause an ordinary person to feel threatened, by giving
rise to a reasonable fear that resistance or defiance will be met
with force.”).
Williams then entered into a written conditional plea
agreement, pleading guilty to bank robbery and use of a fire‐
arm in the course of a crime of violence but reserving his right
to appeal the order denying his motion to dismiss the firearm
charge. The district judge sentenced Williams to a total of 120
months in prison, comprised of a below‐guideline term of 36
months for the robbery charge and a mandatory consecutive
term of 84 months for the § 924(c) charge.
Williams appeals his conviction under § 924(c), arguing
that federal bank robbery under § 2113(a) is not categorically
a “crime of violence.” We review de novo the district court’s
decision as to whether bank robbery qualifies as a crime of
violence under § 924(c)(3)(A). See Cardena, 842 F.3d at 1000,
citing United States v. Cureton, 739 F.3d 1032, 1040 (7th Cir.
2014). To determine if an offense is a crime of violence under
the elements clause, § 924(c)(3)(A), we focus of course on the
4 No. 16‐3373
statutory elements of the offense, not the actual facts underly‐
ing the particular defendant’s crime. See Descamps v. United
States, 570 U.S. —, —, 133 S. Ct. 2276, 2283 (2013), citing Taylor
v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 600 (1990); United States v. Ed‐
wards, 836 F.3d 831, 833 (7th Cir. 2016). We must presume the
conviction rested on the least serious acts that would satisfy
the statute. Johnson v. United States, 559 U.S. 133, 137 (2010).2
In United States v. Armour, we held that federal attempted
bank robbery is a crime of violence under the elements clause
of § 924(c). 840 F.3d 904, 907 (7th Cir. 2016). Armour argued
that since bank robbery can be committed by intimidation as
distinct from “by force or violence,” it could not be a crime of
violence. Id. at 908. Applying the categorical approach, we
disagreed. We reasoned that “[i]ntimidation means the threat
of force” and exists “when a bank robber’s words and actions
would cause an ordinary person to feel threatened, by giving
rise to a reasonable fear that resistance or defiance will be met
with force.” Id. at 909 (citations omitted). In short, the intimi‐
dation element of the crime of bank robbery is satisfied when
an individual feels threatened under the circumstances. See,
e.g., Gordon, 642 F.3d at 598 (holding that intimidation exists
when the robber’s actions cause reasonable fear that defiance
will be met with physical force); United States v. Burnley, 533
2 The Third Circuit has taken a different, more fact‐based approach to
§ 924(c), looking to the manner in which the predicate offense was com‐
mitted, explaining that the relevant question is not whether Hobbs Act
robbery was a crime of violence, but whether a Hobbs Act robbery com‐
mitted while brandishing a firearm is a crime of violence. United States v.
Robinson, 844 F.3d 137, 143–44 (3d Cir. 2016). Judge Fuentes wrote a con‐
curring opinion arguing that a straightforward application of the categor‐
ical approach should treat Hobbs Act robbery as a crime of violence under
§ 924(c)(3)(A). 844 F.3d at 149–50.
No. 16‐3373 5
F.3d 901, 903 (7th Cir. 2008) (intimidation does not require an
explicit threat; implied threats that refusal to comply will be
met with force are sufficient); United States v. Jones, 932 F.2d
624, 625 (7th Cir. 1991) (“Intimidation means the threat of
force.”).
In Armour, we observed that the threatened violent force
must clear only “a low threshold—a fear of a slap in the face
is enough.” Armour, 840 F.3d at 909, citing Johnson, 559 U.S. at
143. “A bank employee can reasonably believe that a robber’s
demands for money to which he is not entitled will be met
with violent force of the type [required] … because bank rob‐
bery [by intimidation] under § 2113(a) inherently contains a
threat of violent physical force.” Id. Thus, we found the “low
threshold of violent force is necessarily satisfied in an at‐
tempted bank robbery by intimidation,” and we held that
bank robbery is a crime of violence. Id.
To avoid the reasoning of Armour, Williams now asks us
to import an extra mental state—intent to intimidate—into the
definition of a crime of violence under § 924(c). He does so by
first observing that we have held in the analogous setting of
18 U.S.C. § 16(a) that crimes of violence must contain as an
element the intentional use of force. See Bazan‐Reyes v. INS, 256
F.3d 600, 609 (7th Cir. 2001) (holding that deportation statute
required intent higher than recklessness or negligence, thus
making a conviction for homicide by intoxicated use of a mo‐
tor vehicle not a crime of violence under § 16(a)). Williams
couples that point with the observation that the intimidation
element of federal bank robbery does not require proof that
the robber intended to intimidate the victim. All that is re‐
quired is that an ordinary person would feel threatened under
6 No. 16‐3373
the circumstances. Armour, 840 F.3d at 909. Thus, William ar‐
gues, without a requirement to prove intent to intimidate, fed‐
eral bank robbery cannot be a crime of violence.
It is true that bank robbery is a general intent crime, mean‐
ing that the robber’s actions giving rise to the intimidation
must have been intentional. United States v. Durham, 645 F.3d
883, 891 n.1 (7th Cir. 2011), citing Carter v. United States, 530
U.S. 255, 269–70 (2000). It is also true that federal bank robbery
“by intimidation” does not require the government to prove
intent to intimidate. Still, the government must prove that the
defendant acted intentionally in a way that would cause a rea‐
sonable person to be intimidated, i.e., to fear that resistance or
defiance may be met with force. See United States v. Duncan,
833 F.3d 751, 756–57 (7th Cir. 2016) (holding that Indiana rob‐
bery “by fear” constitutes a violent felony under
§ 924(e)(2)(B)(i), whose elements clause uses almost the same
language as § 924(c)(3)); United States v. Rutherford, 54 F.3d
370, 373 (7th Cir. 1995) (holding in the Sentencing Guidelines
context that a “threatened use of force must be intentional;
one cannot accidentally make a threat”). Simply put, theft of
money from a bank by means of intimidation is not negligent
or accidental behavior. Cf. United States v. Castleman, 572 U.S.
—, —, 134 S. Ct. 1405, 1415 (2014) (negligent or merely acci‐
dental conduct cannot satisfy requirement that “use” of force
must be intentional). That is sufficient to satisfy the intent re‐
quirements discussed in Bazan‐Reyes, upon which Williams
relies. 256 F.3d at 609.
To avoid this line of reasoning, Williams relies on the in‐
terpretation of 18 U.S.C. § 875 in Elonis v. United States, 575
U.S. —, 135 S. Ct. 2001 (2015). Section 875(c) outlaws interstate
communications that threaten to kidnap or injure another
No. 16‐3373 7
person. In Elonis, the Supreme Court explained that when
reading a mens rea requirement into a statute, sometimes “re‐
quiring only that the defendant act knowingly would fail to
protect the innocent actor.” Id. at 2010 (citation omitted). Ac‐
cordingly, the Court found that § 875(c) requires proof that a
defendant know both that she is transmitting a communica‐
tion and also the threatening nature of the communication.
The threatening nature of the communication is what makes
the communication criminal. Id. at 2011. Thus, Elonis’s convic‐
tion could not stand because it was obtained by proving only
that a reasonable person would have interpreted the commu‐
nications as threatening in nature, not that Elonis knew that
the contents of his communication were threatening. Id. at
2012.
The reasoning of Elonis does not extend to bank robbery,
where the concerns about innocent conduct and free speech
in Elonis do not apply. Williams’s argument regarding intent
is imported from, and better suited to, statutes criminalizing
pure threats. Bank robbery is caused by intentional acts, not
by negligence or accidental conduct. With bank robbery, the
intimidation—the threat of violent force—is one means by
which the wrongful act of theft can be completed. The explicit
or implicit threat of violent force is inherent in the intimida‐
tion element, and that is what is required by § 924(c)(3). See
Armour, 840 F.3d at 908–09. Bank robbery by intimidation is a
crime of violence as defined by the elements clause of
§ 924(c)(3)(A).
* * *
We agree with the district court that bank robbery by in‐
timidation defined in § 2113(a) is a crime of violence under
8 No. 16‐3373
the elements clause of § 924(c)(3)(A). Defendant Williams’
convictions and sentence are AFFIRMED.