SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________________
No. 13–7451
_________________________
JOHN L. YATES, PETITIONER
v. UNITED STATES
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the eleventh circuit
[February 25, 2015]
Justice Kagan, with whom Justice Scalia, Justice Kennedy, and
Justice Thomas join, dissenting.
A criminal law,18 U. S. C. §1519, prohibits
tampering with “any record, document, or
tangible object†in an attempt to obstruct a federal
investigation. This case raises the question whether the term
“tangible object†means the same
thing in §1519 as it means in everyday
language—any object capable of being touched.
The answer should be easy: Yes. The term
“tangible object†is broad, but
clear. Throughout the U. S. Code and many
States’ laws, it invariably covers physical
objects of all kinds. And in §1519, context confirms
what bare text says: All the words surrounding
“tangible object†show that Congress
meant the term to have a wide range. That fits with
Congress’s evident purpose in enacting
§1519: to punish those who alter or destroy physical
evidence—
any physical
evidence—with the intent of thwarting federal
law enforcement.
The plurality instead interprets “tangible
object†to cover “only objects one
can use to record or preserve information.â€
Ante, at 7. The concurring opinion similarly, if more
vaguely, contends that “tangible
object†should refer to “something
similar to records or documentsâ€â€”and
shouldn’t include colonial farmhouses,
crocodiles, or fish.
Ante, at 1 (Alito, J., concurring in
judgment). In my view, conventional tools of statutory construction
all lead to a more conventional result: A
“tangible object†is an object
that’s tangible. I would apply the statute that
Congress enacted and affirm the judgment below.
I
While the plurality starts its analysis with
§1519’s heading, see
ante, at
10 (“We note first
§1519’s captionâ€), I
would begin with §1519’s text. When
Congress has not supplied a definition, we generally give a
statutory term its ordinary meaning. See,
e.g.,
Schindler
Elevator Corp. v.
United States ex rel. Kirk, 563 U. S.
___, ___ (2011) (slip op., at 5). As the plurality must
acknowledge, the ordinary meaning of “tangible
object†is “a discrete thing that
possesses physical form.â€
Ante, at 7
(punctuation and citation omitted). A fish is, of course, a
discrete thing that possesses physical form. See generally Dr.
Seuss, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (1960). So the ordinary
meaning of the term “tangible
object†in §1519, as noone here disputes,
covers fish (including too-small red grouper).
That interpretation accords with endless uses of the term in
statute and rule books as construed by courts. Dozens of federal
laws and rules of procedure (and hundreds of state enactments)
include the term “tangible objectâ€
or its first cousin “tangible
thingâ€â€”some in association with
documents, others not. See,
e.g., 7 U. S. C.
§8302(2) (referring to “any material
or tangible object that could harbor a pest or
diseaseâ€);15 U. S. C.
§57b–1(c) (authorizing investigative
demands for “documentary material or tangible
thingsâ€);18 U. S. C.
§668(a)(1)(D) (defining
“museum†as entity that owns
“tangible objects that are exhibited to the
publicâ€);28 U. S. C.
§2507(b) (allowing discovery of
“relevant facts, books, papers, documents or
tangible thingsâ€).[
1] To my
knowledge, no court has ever read any such provision to exclude
things that don’t record or preserve data;
rather, all courts have adhered to the statutory
language’s ordinary (
i.e., expansive)
meaning. For example, courts have understood the phrases
“tangible objects†and
“tangible things†in the Federal
Rules of Criminal and Civil Procedure to cover everything from guns
to drugs to machinery to . . . animals.
See,
e.g.,
United States v.
Obiukwu, 17
F. 3d 816, 819 (CA6 1994) (
per curiam)
(handgun);
United States v.
Acarino, 270 F. Supp.
526, 527–528 (EDNY 1967) (heroin);
In re
Newman, 782 F. 2d 971, 972–975 (CA Fed.
1986) (energy generation system);
Martin v.
Reynolds
Metals Corp., 297 F. 2d 49, 56–57 (CA9 1961)
(cattle). No surprise, then, that—until
today—courts have uniformly applied the term
“tangible object†in
§1519 in the same way. See,
e.g.,
United
States v.
McRae, 702 F. 3d 806,
834–838 (CA5 2012) (corpse);
United
States v.
Maury, 695 F. 3d 227,
243–244 (CA3 2012) (cement mixer).
That is not necessarily the end of the matter; I agree with the
plurality (really, who does not?) that context matters in
interpreting statutes. We do not “construe the
meaning of statutory terms in a vacuum.â€
Tyler
v.
Cain,533 U. S. 656,662 (2001). Rather, we
interpret particular words “in their context and
with a view to their place in the overall statutory
scheme.â€
Davis v.
Michigan Dept. of
Treasury,489 U. S. 803,809 (1989). And sometimes
that means, as the plurality says, that the dictionary definition
of a disputed term cannot control. See,
e.g.,
Bloate
v.
United States, 559 U. S. 196,
n. 9 (2010). But this is not such an occasion, for here
the text and its context point the same way. Stepping back from the
words “tangible object†provides
only further evidence that Congress said what it meant and meant
what it said.
Begin with the way the surrounding words in §1519
reinforce the breadth of the term at issue. Section 1519 refers to
“any†tangible object, thus
indicating (in line with
that word’s
plain meaning) a tangible object “of whatever
kind.†Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary 97 (2002). This Court has time and again
recognized that “any†has
“an expansive meaning,†bringing
within a statute’s reach
all types of the
item (here, “tangible objectâ€) to
which the law refers.
Department of Housing and Urban
Development v.
Rucker,535 U. S. 125,131 (2002); see,
e.g.,
Republic of Iraq v.
Beaty,556 U. S.
848,856 (2009);
Ali v.
Federal Bureau of Prisons,552
U. S. 214–220 (2008). And the adjacent laundry
list of verbs in §1519 (“alters,
destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a
false entryâ€) further shows that Congress wrote a
statute with a wide scope. Those words are supposed to
ensure—just as “tangible
object†is meant to—that
§1519 covers the whole world of evidence-tampering, in
all its prodigious variety. See
United States v.
Rodgers,466 U. S. 475,480 (1984) (rejecting a
“narrow, technical definition†of a
statutory term when it “clashes
strongly†with
“sweeping†language in the same
sentence).
Still more, “tangible objectâ€
appears as part of a three-noun phrase (including also
“records†and
“documentsâ€) common to
evidence-tampering laws and always understood to embrace things of
all kinds. The Model Penal Code’s
evidence-tampering section, drafted more than 50 years ago,
similarly prohibits a person from “alter[ing],
destroy[ing], conceal[ing] or remov[ing] any
record, document or
thing†in an effort to thwart an official
investigation or proceeding. ALI, Model Penal Code
§241.7(1),p. 175 (1962) (emphasis added). The
Code’s commentary emphasizes that the offense
described in that provision is “not limited to
conduct that [alters] a written instrument.â€
Id., §241.7, Comment 3, at 179. Rather, the
language extends to “any physical
object.â€
Ibid. Consistent with that
statement—and, of course, with ordinary
meaning—courts in the more than 15 States that
have laws based on the Model Code’s tampering
provision apply them to all tangible objects, including drugs,
guns, vehicles and . . . yes, animals. See,
e.g.,
State v.
Majors, 318 S. W. 3d 850,
859–861 (Tenn. 2010) (cocaine);
Puckett
v.
State, 328 Ark. 355, 357–360, 944 S.
W. 2d 111, 113–114 (1997) (gun);
State v.
Bruno, 236 Conn. 514, 519–520, 673 A. 2d
1117, 1122–1123 (1996) (bicycle, skeleton, blood
stains);
State v.
Crites, 2007 Mont. Dist. LEXIS 615,
*5–*7 (Dec. 21, 2007) (deer antlers). Not a one
has limited the phrase’s scope to objects that
record or preserve information.
The words “record, document, or tangible
object†in §1519 also track language in18
U. S. C. §1512, the federal
witness-tampering law covering (as even the plurality accepts, see
ante, at 12) physical evidence in all its forms. Section
1512, both in its original version (preceding §1519)
and today, repeatedly uses the phrase “record,
document, or other objectâ€â€”most
notably, in a provision prohibiting the use of force or threat to
induce another person to withhold any of those materials from an
official proceeding. §4(a) of the Victim and Witness
Protection Act of 1982,96Stat.1249, as amended,18
U. S. C. §1512(b)(2). That
language, which itself likely derived from the Model Penal Code,
encompasses no less the bloody knife than the incriminating letter,
as all courts have for decades agreed. See,
e.g.,
United
States v.
Kellington, 217 F. 3d 1084, 1088 (CA9 2000)
(boat);
United States v.
Applewhaite, 195 F. 3d 679,
688 (CA3 1999) (stone wall). And typically “only
the most compelling evidence†will persuade this Court
that Congress intended “nearly identical
language†in provisions dealing with related subjects
to bear different meanings.
Communication Workers v.
Beck,487 U. S. 735,754 (1988); see A. Scalia
& B. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 252
(2012). Context thus again confirms what text indicates.
And legislative history, for those who care about it, puts extra
icing on a cake already frosted. Section 1519, as the plurality
notes, see
ante, at 2, 6, was enacted after the Enron
Corporation’s collapse, as part of the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002,116Stat.745. But the provision began its
life in a separate bill, and the drafters emphasized that Enron was
“only a case study exposing the shortcomings in
our current laws†relating to both
“corporate and criminal†fraud. S.
Rep. No. 107–146, pp. 2, 11 (2002).
The primary
“loophole[ ]†Congress
identified, see
id., at 14, arose from limits in the part of
§1512 just described: That provision, as uniformly
construed, prohibited a person from inducing another to destroy
“record[s], document[s], or other
object[s]â€â€”of every
type—but not from doing so himself.
§1512(b)(2); see
supra, at 5. Congress (as even
the plurality agrees, see
ante, at 6) enacted
§1519 to close that yawning gap. But §1519
could fully achieve that goal only if it covered all the records,
documents, and objects §1512 did, as well as all the
means of tampering with them. And so §1519 was written
to do exactly that—“to apply
broadly to any acts to destroy or fabricate physical
evidence,†as long as performed with the requisite
intent. S. Rep. No. 107–146, at 14.
“When a person destroys evidence,â€
the drafters explained, “overly technical legal
distinctions should neither hinder nor prevent
prosecution.â€
Id., at 7. Ah well: Congress, meet
today’s Court, which here invents just such a
distinction with just such an effect. See
United States v.
Philadelphia Nat. Bank,374 U. S. 321,343 (1963)
(“[C]reat[ing] a large loophole in a statute
designed to close a loophole†is
“illogical and disrespectful of
. . . congressional
purposeâ€).
As Congress recognized in using a broad term, giving immunity to
those who destroy non-documentary evidence has no sensible basis in
penal policy. A person who hides a murder
victim’s body is no less culpable than one who
burns the victim’s diary. A fisherman, like John
Yates, who dumps undersized fish to avoid a fine is no less
blameworthy than one who shreds his vessel’s
catch logfor the same reason. Congress thus treated both offenders
in the same way. It understood, in enacting §1519, that
destroying evidence is destroying evidence, whether or not that
evidence takes documentary form.
II
A
The plurality searches far and wide for
anything—
anything—to
support its interpretation of §1519. But its fishing
expedition comes up empty.
The plurality’s analysis starts with
§1519’s title:
“Destruction, alteration, or falsification of
records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy.†See
ante, at 10; see also
ante, at 3–4
(opinion of Alito, J.). That’s already a sign
something is amiss. I know of no other case in which we have
begun our interpretation of a statute with the title, or
relied on a title to override the law’s clear
terms. Instead, we have followed “the wise rule
that the title of a statute and the heading of a section cannot
limit the plain meaning of the text.â€
Trainmen
v.
Baltimore & Ohio R. Co.,331 U. S.
519–529 (1947).
The reason for that “wise ruleâ€
is easy to see: A title is, almost necessarily, an abridgment.
Attempting to mention every term in a statute
“would often be ungainly as well as
uselessâ€; accordingly, “matters in
the text . . . are frequently unreflected
in the headings.â€
Id., at 528. Just last year,
this Court observed that two titles in a nearby section of
Sarbanes-Oxley serve as “but a short-hand
reference to the general subject matter†of the
provision at issue, “not meant to take the place
of the detailed provisions of the text.â€
Lawson
v.
FMR LLC, 571 U. S. ___, ___ (2014) (slip op., at 16)
(quoting
Trainmen, 331 U. S., at 528). The
“under-inclusiveness†of the
headings, we stated, was “apparent.â€
Lawson, 571 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at16). So
too for §1519’s title, which refers
to “destruction, alteration, or
falsification†but
not to mutilation,
concealment, or covering up, and likewise mentions
“records†but
not other
documents or objects. Presumably, the plurality would not refuse to
apply §1519 when a person only conceals evidence rather
than destroying, altering, or falsifying it; instead, the plurality
would say that a title is just a title, which cannot
“undo or limit†more specific
statutory text.
Ibid. (quoting
Trainmen, 331
U. S., at 529). The same holds true when the evidence
in question is not a “record†but
something else whose destruction, alteration, etc., is intended to
obstruct justice.
The plurality next tries to divine meaning from
§1519’s “position
within Chapter 73 of Title 18.â€
Ante, at 10. But
that move is yet odder than the last. As far as I can tell, this
Court has never once suggested that the section number assigned to
a law bears upon its meaning. Cf. Scalia,
supra, at
xi–xvi (listing more than 50 interpretive
principles and canons without mentioning the
plurality’s new number-in-the-Code theory). And
even on its own terms, the plurality’s argument
is hard to fathom. The plurality claims that if §1519
applied to objects generally, Congress would not have placed it
“after the pre-existing §1516,
§1517, and §1518†because those
are “specialized provisions.â€
Ante, at 11. But search me if I can find a better place for
a broad ban on evidence-tampering. The plural-ity seems to agree
that the law properly goes in Chapter 73—the
criminal code’s chapter on
“obstruction of justice.†But the
provision does not logically fit into any of that
chapter’s pre-existing sections. And with the
first 18 numbers of the chapter already taken (starting with
§1501 and continuing through §1518), the
law naturally took the 19th place. That is standard operating
procedure. Prior to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, all of Chapter
73 was ordered chronologically: Section 1518 was later enacted than
§1517, which was later enacted than §1516,
which was . . . well, you get the idea. And
after Sarbanes-Oxley, Congress has continued in the same vein.
Section 1519 is thus right where you would expect it (as is the
contemporaneously passed
§1520)—between §1518
(added in 1996) and §1521 (added in 2008).[
2]
The plurality’s third argument, relying on
the surplusage canon, at least invokes a known tool of statutory
construction—but it too comes to nothing. Says
the plurality: If read naturally, §1519
“would render superfluousâ€
§1512(c)(1), which Congress passed
“as part of the same act.â€
Ante, at 13. But that is not so: Although the two provisions
significantly overlap, each applies to conduct the other does not.
The key difference between the two is that §1519
protects the integrity of “matter[s] within the
jurisdiction of any [federal] department or agencyâ€
whereas §1512(c)(1) safeguards
“official proceeding[s]†as
definedin §1515(a)(1)(A). Section
1519’s language often applies more broadly than
§1512(c)(1)’s, as the plurality
notes. For example, an FBI investigation counts as a matter within
a federal department’s jurisdiction, but falls
outside the statutory definition of “official
proceeding†as construed by courts. See,
e.g.,
United States v.
Gabriel, 125 F. 3d 89, 105, n. 13
(CA2 1997). But conversely, §1512(c)(1) sometimes
reaches more widely than §1519. For example, because an
“official proceeding†includes any
“proceeding before a judge or court of the
United States,†§1512(c)(1) prohibits
tampering with evidence in federal litigation between private
parties. See §1515(a)(1)(A);
United States v.
Burge, 711 F. 3d 803, 808–810
(CA7 2013);
United States v.
Reich, 479
F. 3d 179, 185–187 (CA2 2007)
(Sotomayor, J.). By contrast, §1519
wouldn’t ordinarily operate in that context
because a federal court isn’t a
“department or agency.†See
Hubbard v.
United States,514 U. S.
695,715 (1995).[
3] So the surplusage canon
doesn’t come into play.[
4]
Overlap—even significant
overlap—abounds in the criminal law. See
Loughrin v.
United States, 573 U. S. ___,
___ – ___, n. 4 (2014) (slip op., at
6–7, n. 4). This Court has never
thought that of such ordinary stuff surplusage is made. See
ibid.;
Connecticut Nat. Bank v.
Germain,503
U. S. 249,253 (1992).
And the legislative history to which the plurality appeals, see
ante, at 6, only cuts against it because those materials
show that lawmakers knew that §1519 and
§1512(c)(1) share much common ground. Minority Leader
Lott introduced the amendment that included §1512(c)(1)
(along with other criminal and corporate fraud provisions) late in
the legislative process, explaining that he did so at the specific
request of the President. See 148 Cong. Rec. 12509, 12512 (2002)
(remarks of Sen. Lott). Not only Lott but several other Senators
noted the overlap between the President’s
package and provisions already in the bill, most notably
§1519. See
id., at 12512 (remarks of Sen. Lott);
id., at 12513 (remarks of Sen. Biden);
id., at 12517
(remarks of Sens. Hatch and Gramm). The presence of both
§1519 and §1512(c)(1) in the final Act may
have reflected belt-and-suspenders caution: If §1519
contained some flaw, §1512(c)(1) would serve as a
backstop. Or the addition of §1512(c)(1) may have
derived solely from legislators’ wish
“to satisfy audiences other than
courtsâ€â€”that is, the President and
his Justice Department. Gluck & Bressman, Statutory
Interpretation from the Inside, 65 Stan. L. Rev. 901, 935 (2013)
(emphasis deleted). Whichever the case,
Congress’s consciousness of overlap between the
two provisions removes any conceivable reason to cast aside
§1519’s ordinary meaning in service
of preventing some statutory repetition.
Indeed, the inclusion of §1512(c)(1) in
Sarbanes-Oxley creates a far worse problem for the
plurality’s construction of §1519
than for mine. Section 1512(c)(1) criminalizes the destruction of
any “record, document, or other
objectâ€; §1519 of any
“record, document, or tangible
object.†On the plurality’s view,
one “object†is really an object,
whereas the other is only an object that preserves or stores
information. But “[t]he normal rule of statutory
construction assumes that identical words used in different parts
of the same act,†passed at the same time,
“are intended to have the same
meaning.â€
Sorenson v.
Secretary of
Treasury,475 U. S. 851,860 (1986) (internal
quotation marks omitted). And that is especially true when the
different provisions pertain to the same subject. See
supra,
at 5–6. The plurality
doesn’t—really,
can’t—explain why it instead
interprets the same words used in two provisions of the same Act
addressing the same basic problem to mean fundamentally different
things.
Getting nowhere with surplusage, the plurality switches canons,
hoping that
noscitur a sociis and
ejusdem generis
will save it. See
ante, at 13–16; see
also
ante, at 1–2 (opinion of Alito, J.).
The first of those related canons advises that words grouped in a
list be given similar meanings. The second counsels that a general
term following specific words embraces only things of a similar
kind. According to the plurality, those Latin maxims change the
English meaning of “tangible objectâ€
to only things, like records and documents,
“used to record or preserve
information.â€
Ante, at 14.[
5]
But understood as this Court always has, the canons have no such
transformative effect on the workaday language Congress chose.
As an initial matter, this Court uses
noscitur a sociis
and
ejusdem generis to resolve ambiguity, not create it.
Those principles are “useful rule[s] of
construction where words are of obscure or doubtful
meaning.â€
Russell Motor Car Co. v.
United
States,261 U. S. 514,520 (1923). But when words have a clear
definition, and all other contextual clues support that meaning,
the canons cannot properly defeat Congress’s
decision to draft broad legislation. See,
e.g.,
Ali,
552 U. S., at 227 (rejecting the invocation of these
canons as an “attempt to create ambiguity where
the statute’s text and structure suggest
noneâ€).
Anyway, assigning “tangible
object†its ordinary meaning comports with
noscitur
a sociis and
ejusdem generis when applied, as they
should be, with attention to §1519’s
subject and purpose. Those canons require identifying a common
trait that links all the words in a statutory phrase. See,
e.g.,
Graham County Soil and Water Conservation Dist.
v.
United States ex rel. Wilson,559 U. S.
280,289, n.7 (2010);
Ali, 552 U. S., at
224–226. In responding to that demand, the
plurality characterizes records and documents as things that
preserve information—and so they are. But just
as much, they are things that provide information, and thus
potentially serve as evidence relevant to matters under review. And
in a statute pertaining to obstruction of federal investigations,
that evidentiary function comes to the fore. The destruction of
records and documents prevents law enforcement agents from
gathering facts relevant to official inquiries. And so too does the
destruction of tangible objects—of whatever
kind. Whether the item is a fisherman’s ledger
or an undersized fish, throwing it overboard has the identical
effect on the administration of justice. See
supra, at 7.
For purposes of §1519, records, documents, and (all)
tangible objects are therefore alike.
Indeed, even the plurality can’t fully credit
its
noscitur/
ejusdem argument. The same reasoning
would apply to
every law placing the word
“object†(or
“thingâ€) after
“record†and
“document.†But as noted earlier,
such statutes are common: The phrase appears (among other places)
in many state laws based on the Model Penal Code, as well as in
multiple provisions of §1512. See
supra, at
4–5. The plurality accepts that in those laws
“object†means object; its argument
about superfluity positively
depends on giving
§1512(c)(1) that broader reading. See
ante, at
13, 16. What, then, is the difference here? The plurality proposes
that some of those statutes describe less serious offenses than
§1519. See
ante, at 17. How and why that
distinction affects application of the
noscitur a sociis and
ejusdem generis canons is left obscure: Count it asone more
of the plurality’s
never-before-propounded,not-readily-explained interpretive
theories. See
supra, at 7, 8–9,
11–12. But in any event, that rationale cannot
support the plurality’s willingness to give
“object†its natural meaning in
§1512, which (like §1519) sets out felonies
with penalties of up to 20 years. See
§§1512(a)(3)(C), (b), (c). The canons, in
the plurality’s interpretive world, apparently
switch on and off whenever convenient.
And the plurality’s invocation of
§1519’s verbs does nothing to
buttress its canon-based argument. See
ante, at
14–15;
ante, at 2–3
(opinion of Alito, J.). The plurality observes that
§1519 prohibits
“falsif[ying]†or
“mak[ing] a false entry in†a
tangible object, and no one can do those things to, say, a murder
weapon (or a fish).
Ante, at 14. But of course someone can
alter, destroy, mutilate, conceal, or cover up such a tangible
object, and §1519 prohibits those actions too. The
Court has never before suggested that all the verbs in a statute
need to match up with all the nouns. See
Robers v.
United
States, 572 U. S. ___, ___ (2014) (slip op., at 4)
(“[T]he law does not require legislators to
write extra language specifically exempting, phrase by phrase,
applications in respect to which a portion of a phrase is not
neededâ€). And for good reason. It is exactly when
Congress sets out to draft a statute broadly—to
include every imaginable variation on a
theme—that such mismatches will arise. To
respond by narrowing the law, as the plurality does, is thus to
flout both what Congress wrote and what Congress wanted.
Finally, when all else fails, the plurality invokes the rule of
lenity. See
ante, at 18. But even in its most robust form,
that rule only kicks in when, “after all
legitimate tools of interpretation have been exhausted,
‘a reasonable doubt persists’
regarding whether Congress has made the
defendant’s conduct a federal
crime.â€
Abramski v.
United States, 573
U. S. ___, ___ (2014) (Scalia, J.,
dissenting) (slip op., at 12) (quoting
Moskal v.
United
States,498 U. S. 103,108 (1990)). No such doubt
lingers here. The plural-ity points to the breadth of
§1519, see
ante, at 18, as though breadth were
equivalent to ambiguity. It is not. Section 1519
is very
broad. It is also very clear. Every traditional tool of statutory
interpretation points in the same direction, toward
“object†meaning object. Lenity
offers no proper refuge from that straightforward (even though
capacious) construction.[
6]
B
The concurring opinion is a shorter, vaguer version of the
plurality’s. It relies primarily on the
noscitur a sociis and
ejusdem generis canons, tries
to bolster them with §1519’s
“list of verbs,†and concludes with
the section’s title. See
supra, at
7–8, 12–13,
14–15 (addressing each of those arguments).
(Notably, even the concurrence puts no stock in the
plurality’s section-number and superfluity
claims.) From those familiar materials, the concurrence arrives at
the following definition:
“ ‘tangible
object’ should mean something similar to records
or documents.â€
Ante, at 4 (opinion of Alito,
J.). In amplifying that purported guidance, the concurrence
suggests applying the term “tangible
object†in keeping with what “a
neighbor, when asked to identify something similar to record or
document,†might answer.
Ante, at 1.
“[W]ho wouldn’t raise an
eyebrow,†the concurrence wonders, if the neighbor said
“crocodile�
Ante, at
1–2. Courts sometimes say, when explaining the
Latin maxims, that the “words of a statute
should be interpreted consistent with their neighbors.â€
See,
e.g.,
United States v.
Locke, 529
U. S. 89,105 (2000). The concurrence takes that
expression literally.
But §1519’s meaning should not
hinge on the odd game of Mad Libs the concurrence proposes. No one
reading §1519 needs to fill in a blank after the words
“records†and
“documents.†That is because
Congress, quite helpfully, already did so—adding
the term “tangible object.†The
issue in this case is what that term means. So if the concurrence
wishes to ask its neighbor a question, I’d
recommend a more pertinent one: Do you think a fish (or, if the
concurrence prefers, a crocodile) is a “tangible
object� As to that query, “who
wouldn’t raise an eyebrow†if the
neighbor said “no�
In insisting on its different question, the concurrence neglects
the proper function of catchall phrases like “or
tangible object.†The reason Congress uses such terms
is precisely to reach things that, in the
concurrence’s words,
“do[ ] not spring to
mindâ€â€”to my mind, to my
neighbor’s, or (most important) to
Congress’s.
Ante, at 1 (opinion of Alito,
J.). As this Court recently explained: “[T]he
whole value of a generally phrased residual [term] is that it
serves as a catchall for matters not specifically
contemplated—known unknowns.â€
Beaty, 556 U. S., at 860. Congress realizes that
in a game of free association with
“record†and
“document,†it will never think of
all the other things—including crocodiles and
fish—whose destruction or alteration can (less
frequently but just as effectively) thwart law enforcement. Cf.
United States v.
Stubbs, 11 F. 3d 632,
637–638 (CA6 1993) (dead crocodiles used as
evidence to support smuggling conviction). And so Congress adds the
general term “or tangible
objectâ€â€”again, exactly because such
things “do[ ] not spring to
mind.â€[
7]
The concurrence suggests that the term
“tangible object†serves not as a
catchall for physical evidence but to “ensure
beyond question†that e-mails and other electronic
files fall within §1519’s compass.
Ante, at 2. But that claim is eyebrow-raising in its own
right. Would a Congress wishing to make certain that
§1519 applies toe-mails add the phrase
“tangible object†(as opposed, say,
to “electronic communicationsâ€)?
Would a judge or jury member predictably find that
“tangible object†encompasses
something as virtual as e-mail (as compared, say, with something as
real as a fish)? If not (and the answer is not), then that term
cannot function as a failsafe fore-mails.
The concurrence acknowledges that no one of its arguments can
carry the day; rather, it takes the Latin canons plus
§1519’s verbs plus
§1519’s title to
“tip the case†for Yates.
Ante, at 1. But the sum total of three mistaken arguments is
. . . three mistaken arguments. They do not
get better in the combining. And so the concurrence ends up right
where the plurality does, except that the concurrence, eschewing
the rule of lenity, has nothing to fallback on.
III
If none of the traditional tools of statutory interpretation can
produce today’s result, then what accounts for
it? The plurality offers a clue when it emphasizes the
disproportionate penalties §1519 imposes if the law is
read broadly. See
ante, at 17–18. Section
1519, the plurality objects, would then
“expose[ ] individuals to 20-year
prison sentences for tampering with
any physical object that
might have evidentiary value in
any federal
investigation into
any offense.â€
Ante, at
18. That brings to the surface the real issue: overcriminalization
and excessive punishment in the U. S. Code.
Now as to this statute, I think the plurality
somewhat—though only
somewhat—exaggerates the matter. The plurality
omits from its description of §1519 the requirement
that a person act “knowingly†and
with “the intent to impede, obstruct, or
influence†federal law enforcement. And in highlighting
§1519’s maximum penalty, the
plurality glosses over the absence of any prescribed minimum.
(Let’s not forget that
Yates’s sentence was not 20 years, but 30 days.)
Congress presumably enacts laws with high maximums and no minimums
when it thinks the prohibited conduct may run the gamut from major
to minor. Thatis assuredly true of acts obstructing justice.
Compare this case with the following, all of which properly come
within, but now fall outside, §1519:
McRae, 702
F. 3d, at 834–838 (burning human
body to thwart murder investigation);
Maury, 695
F. 3d, at 243–244 (altering cement
mixer to impede inquiry into amputation of
employee’s fingers);
United States v.
Natal, 2014 U. S. Dist. LEXIS 108852,
*24–*26 (D Conn., Aug. 7, 2014) (repainting van
to cover up evidence of fatal arson). Most district judges, as
Congress knows, will recognize differences between such cases and
prosecutions like this one, and will try to make the punishment fit
the crime. Still and all, I tend to think, for the reasons the
plurality gives, that §1519 is a bad
law—too broad and undifferentiated, with
too-high maximum penalties, which give prosecutors too much
leverage and sentencers too much discretion. And
I’d go further: In those ways, §1519
is unfortunately not an outlier, but an emblem of a deeper
pathology in the federal criminal code.
But whatever the wisdom or folly of §1519, this
Court does not get to rewrite the law.
“Resolution of the pros and cons of whether a
statute should sweep broadly or narrowly is for
Congress.â€
Rodgers, 466 U. S., at 484. If judges
disagree with Congress’s choice, we are
perfectly entitled to say so—in lectures, in law
review articles, and even in dicta. But we are not entitled to
replace the statute Congress enacted with an alternative of our
owndesign.
I respectfully dissent.