New York Times

Sweeping Ruling on Domestic Violence

By ADAM LIPTAK MARCH 26, 2014

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a broad
interpretation of a federal law that makes it a crime for people convicted of
domestic violence to possess guns.

The court refused to consider a challenge to the law based on the Second
Amendment, saying that argument had received only a “cursory nod” in the
briefs. Instead, the court considered the meaning of the term domestic violence,
with the majority concluding that it encompassed acts “that one might not
characterize as ‘violent’ in a nondomestic context.”

The case concerned James A. Castleman, a Tennessee man who in 2001 was
convicted of assault in state court for causing bodily injury to the mother of his
child. Court records do not say precisely what he did or what injuries the woman
sustained.

When Mr. Castleman was indicted under the federal gun law, he argued
that it did not apply to him because his state conviction did not qualify as a
crime of domestic violence. Though the federal law defines a “misdemeanor
crime of domestic violence” as one involving the use of physical force, he argued
that the state law under which he was charged did not require proof of such
force.

A federal trial judge agreed, saying one could theoretically violate the state
law by tricking a victim into drinking a poisoned beverage. The United States
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, affirmed the trial court’s
decision.

The Supreme Court unanimously reversed that decision, though the justices
disagreed on the rationale.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for six justices, said that domestic violence
must be understood broadly to include “seemingly minor acts.” The word
violence standing alone connotes substantial force, she said, but that is not true
of domestic violence.

She gave examples of what might qualify as only domestic violence:
pushing, grabbing, shoving, hair pulling and “a squeeze of the arm that causes a
bruise.”

Since Mr. Castleman had pleaded guilty to having “caused bodily injury,”
Justice Sotomayor wrote, the use of physical force serious enough to amount to
domestic violence could be assumed.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth
Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Elena Kagan joined the majority
opinion.

In a concurrence, Justice Antonin Scalia agreed that the federal law applied
to Mr. Castleman. But he objected to the notion that domestic violence
encompassed more acts than violence did, calling that an absurdity “at war with
the English language.”

Justice Scalia criticized Justice Sotomayor for relying on “law-review
articles, foreign government bureaus and similar sources” for her broader
definition. Such sources, he said, “are entitled to define ‘domestic violence’ any
way they want.”

“But when they (and the court) impose their all-embracing definition on the
rest of us, they not only distort the law, they impoverish the language,” Justice
Scalia wrote. “When everything is domestic violence, nothing is. Congress will
have to come up with a new word (I cannot imagine what it would be) to denote
actual domestic violence.”

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, issued a
separate concurrence in the case, United States v. Castleman, No. 12-1371.

A version of this article appears in print on March 27, 2014, on page A19 of the New York edition with the
headline: Sweeping Ruling on Domestic Violence.