Taylor v. United States (579 U.S. 301)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 20, 2016 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 579 U.S. 301 · 136 S. Ct. 2074
- Decided
- June 20, 2016
- Term
- October Term 2015
- Vote
- 7–1
- Majority author
- Justice Alito
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court. The Hobbs Act makes it a crime for a person to affect commerce, or to attempt to do so, by robbery. 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a). The Act defines "commerce" broadly as interstate commerce "and all other commerce over which the United States has jurisdiction." § 1951(b)(3). This case requires us to decide what the Government must prove to satisfy the Hobbs Act's commerce element when a defendant commits a robbery that targets a marijuana dealer's drugs or drug proceeds. The answer to this question is straightforward and dictated by our precedent. We held in Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 125 S.Ct. 2195, 162 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005), that the Commerce Clause gives Congress authority to regulate the national market for marijuana, including the authority to proscribe the purely intrastate production, possession, and sale of this controlled substance. Because Congress may regulate these intrastate activities based on their aggregate effect on interstate commerce, it follows that Congress may also regulate intrastate drug theft . And since the Hobbs Act criminalizes robberies and attempted robberies that affect any commerce "over which the United States has jurisdiction," § 1951(b)(3), the prosecution in a Hobbs Act robbery case satisfies the Act's commerce element if it shows that the defendant robbed or attempted to rob a drug dealer of drugs or…
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