In the case of Marcus Sykes v. United States, 2010, the US Supreme Court was tasked with interpreting a provision of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). The ACCA imposes a mandatory minimum sentence for individuals who have three prior convictions for violent felonies or serious drug offenses and are found guilty of possessing a firearm. Sykes had been convicted in Indiana state court for using his vehicle to flee from police after committing a traffic violation - an offense considered by some courts as constituting "violent felony" under ACCA's residual clause. However, he argued that this conviction should not be counted towards his three strikes because it did not involve physical force against another person nor posed substantial risk of injury. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against Sykes, holding that intentionally fleeing from law enforcement in a vehicle constitutes sufficient potential risk to meet ACCA’s definition of “violent felony.” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion stating that high-speed chases can endanger officers and bystanders alike thus qualifying as conduct presenting serious potential risk under ACCA's residual clause.

In the dissenting opinion of Marcus Sykes v. United States, Justice Scalia argued that the majority's interpretation of "physical force" in relation to a violent felony was too broad and inconsistent with previous rulings. He contended that Indiana’s vehicle flight statute does not necessarily involve “purposeful, violent, and aggressive conduct,” thus it should not automatically qualify as a violent felony under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). Scalia believed this approach would lead to arbitrary enforcement due to its reliance on judicial intuition about riskiness rather than clear statutory guidelines. Furthermore, he criticized the Court for failing to provide lower courts with guidance on how they should assess whether an offense poses serious potential risk of physical injury. In his view, such uncertainty undermines legal predictability and allows judges excessive discretion in determining what constitutes a crime punishable under ACCA.