United States v. Willie Yates, 866 F.3d 723

In 2010 police executed a search of Willie Yates’s home and seized firearms and crack; a jury convicted him of being a felon in possession of a firearm (18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1)) and possession of crack with intent to distribute (21 U.S.C. § 841).
At initial sentencing the district court treated Yates as an Armed Career Criminal (ACCA) and imposed a 327-month concurrent sentence; this was later vacated in light of Johnson (2015) and the case remanded for resentencing.
An updated Presentence Report reclassified Yates as a career offender under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1 based on a 1999 Ohio robbery conviction (Ohio Rev. Code § 2911.02(A)(3)) and a 2008 Ohio drug-trafficking conviction, raising his base offense level from 24 to 34.
Yates argued that his Ohio robbery conviction did not qualify as a "crime of violence" under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a) (either the force clause or enumerated-offenses clause) and that a guidelines commentary policy statement warranted declining the enhancement.
The district court applied the career-offender enhancement but imposed a downward variance to 120/240 months concurrent; Yates appealed the career-offender designation and the substantive reasonableness of the sentence.
The Sixth Circuit held that Ohio Rev. Code § 2911.02(A)(3) criminalizes minimal force (e.g., purse-snatching, bumps) and therefore does not qualify as a "crime of violence" under either the force clause or the (then-applicable) enumerated clause; it vacated and remanded for resentencing.

Issue	Yates’s Argument	Government’s Argument	Held
Whether Ohio Rev. Code § 2911.02(A)(3) is a "crime of violence" under U.S.S.G. § 4B1.2(a)(1) (force clause)	Ohio robbery requires only "any" force (defined broadly) and thus can encompass non-violent, minimal force not meeting Johnson's "violent force" standard	Ohio robbery involves use or threat of physical force and therefore qualifies under the force clause	The statute permits conviction based on minimal force (e.g., bumps, purse-snatching) and does not satisfy Johnson's "violent force" requirement; not a crime of violence under the force clause. Vacated career-offender designation on this ground.
Whether Ohio Rev. Code § 2911.02(A)(3) fits the generic definition of robbery for purposes of the (then-applicable) enumerated-offenses analysis	Even if robbery is enumerated by later amendment, Ohio's statute is broader than generic robbery because it criminalizes minimal force insufficient to show "immediate danger" required by generic robbery	Robbery is an enumerated offense (in later guidelines) and Ohio robbery is functionally robbery	Ohio § 2911.02(A)(3) reaches conduct outside the generic robbery definition (criminalizes minimal non-violent force) and therefore does not qualify under the enumerated clause as applied at sentencing.

Johnson v. United States, 559 U.S. 133 (2010) (defines "physical force" required for force-clause analyses as "violent force" capable of causing pain or injury)
Moncrieffe v. Holder, 569 U.S. 184 (2013) (categorical approach; assess statute's least conduct and "realistic probability" of its application)
United States v. Ford, 560 F.3d 420 (6th Cir. 2009) (categorical-approach framework for determining predicate offenses)
United States v. Mitchell, 743 F.3d 1054 (6th Cir. 2014) (discussion of robbery as guaranteeing confrontation and comparison to burglary for risk analysis)
United States v. Mulkern, 854 F.3d 87 (1st Cir. 2017) (state robbery statutes criminalizing "any physical force" do not meet Johnson's violent-force standard)
United States v. Bell, 840 F.3d 963 (8th Cir. 2016) (state robbery statutes applied to purse-snatching or slight bumps do not qualify as violent felonies)