On March 31, 2021, in United States v. Felder, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit resolved three matters of first impression regarding the mens rea and causation requirements of the federal carjacking statute and joined six other circuits in identifying federal carjacking as a predicate crime of violence. In a unanimous opinion, written by Senior Circuit Judge Reena Raggi, and joined by Circuit Judges Richard Sullivan and Joseph Bianco, the Second Circuit ruled that (1) an unconditional intent to harm or kill can satisfy the mens rea element for federal carjacking, (2) but-for causation, without proximate causation, can satisfy the “death results” requirement for enhanced penalties in the federal carjacking statute, and (3) federal carjacking resulting in death is a predicate “crime of violence.”

Underlying Crimes and Convictions

In August 2014, defendant Tyrone Felder and three of his childhood friends hailed a black livery cab in the Bronx with the intention of stealing the vehicle to commit an armed robbery. When the cab driver, at gunpoint, refused to exit the vehicle, Felder shot the driver in the back of the head, killing him. Felder and his co-defendants then used the cab to commit two armed robberies in Yonkers before abandoning it near Yankee Stadium.