Whether knowing conduct not intentionally designed to harm a targeted person satisfies the force clause definition of violent felony in 924(e)(2)(B)(1)

QUESTION PRESENTED In Borden v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1817 (2021), five members of this Court vacated a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence under the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”). They agreed that reckless assault was not a predicate violent felony having as an element “the use of physical force against another.” Justice Kagan’s plurality opinion reasoned the “force clause” definition in 18 U.S.C. § 924(e )(2)(B)(i)’s reference to “the use . . . of physical force against the person of another,” “excluded “conduct, like recklessness, that is not directed or targeted at another.” Justice Thomas concurred in result because “use of physical force” bore a “well understood meaning applying only to intentional acts designed to cause harm.” Petitioner argued the plurality and concurring opinions also excluded knowing conduct not targeted as intentional acts designed to harm another. This invalidated a Missouri crime of knowingly exhibiting a weapon in an angry or threatening manner, a law interpreted to require no intent to target, injure or threaten another. Missouri defines the law’s knowing mental state as requiring mere awareness that one’s conduct could be objectively viewed as angry or threatening, but the witness to the display need not perceive an actual threat. The Eighth Circuit denied relief reasoning that Borden’s plurality and concurring opinions only excluded reckless crimes. The Circuits disagree on which opinion states the rule of Borden. Some deem the plurality constitutes the narrowest and finding rule as a logical subset of the Justice Thomas’s concurrence, citing Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193 (1977). The issues here are: 1. Whether knowing conduct not intentionally designed to harm a targeted person satisfies the force clause definition of violent felony in 924(e)(2)(B)(1)? 2. What is the controlling rule of Borden? 2