In United States v. Carter, No. 17-15495 (Aug. 3, 2021) (Black, Marcus, Restani), the Court vacated the defendant’s ACCA sentence based on a prior conviction for Georgia aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Based on the Shepard documents, the Court was required to assume that the defendant was convicted of a version of Georgia aggravated assault that could be committed with a mens rea of recklessness—specifically, committing an act which places another in reasonable apprehension of immediately receiving a violent injury. Because that offense could be committed recklessly, the Court had previously held in Moss that it was not a violent felony. And the Court had reaffirmed Moss after the Supreme Court’s decision in Borden confirmed that reckless crimes do not satisfy the ACCA’s elements clause.
