Sotomayor, J., dissenting
robbery. That may well be true: The majority notes, for example, that at common law “it was robbery to pull a diamond pin out of a woman’s hair when doing so tore away hair attached to the pin,” ante, at 4, and as anyone who has ever pulled a bobby pin out of her hair knows, hair can break from even the most minimal force. In the majority’s telling, however, the ACCA itself “encompasses the degree of force necessary to commit common-law robbery.” Ante, at 13. That proposition is flatly inconsistent with Johnson.
In explaining its interpretation of “physical force,” the Court in Johnson expressly rejected the common law’s definition of “force,” see 559 U. S., at 139, instead recognizing that the phrase should be “give[n]… its ordinary meaning,” id., at 138. At common law, “force” could be “satisfied by even the slightest offensive touching.” Id., at 139. But as the Court observed, “[a]lthough a common-law term of art should be given its established common-law meaning, we do not assume that a statutory word is used as a term of art where that meaning does not fit.” Ibid. (citation omitted). Rather, “context determines meaning,” ibid., and, “in the context of a statutory definition of ‘violent felony,’ ” the ordinary rather than the common-law meaning of “force” was what fit, id., at 140.
The majority now says that while Johnson rejected the common-law meaning of force with regard to battery, it nevertheless meant somehow to preserve the common-law meaning of force with regard to robbery. See ante, at 4–6, 8–10. In other words, to reach its conclusion, the majority must construe “physical force” in §924(e)(2)(B)(i) to bear two different meanings–Johnson’s and the majority’s–depending on the crime to which it is being applied. That is a radical and unsupportable step.
To be clear, the majority does not simply rule that the phrase “physical force” carries the common-law meaning in one place but a different meaning in another statutory
