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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 16–54
_________________
JUAN ESQUIVEL-QUINTANA, PETITIONER
v.
JEFFERSON B. SESSIONS, III, ATTORNEY GENERAL
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the sixth circuit
[May 30, 2017]
Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the
Court.
The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA),
66Stat. 163, as amended, provides that “[a]ny alien who is
convicted of an aggravated felony after admission” to the United
States may be removed from the country by the Attorney General. 8
U. S. C. §1227(a)(2)(A)(iii). One of the many crimes that
constitutes an aggravated felony under the INA is “sexual abuse of
a minor.” §1101(a)(43)(A). A conviction for sexual abuse of a minor
is an aggravated felony regardless of whether it is for a
“violation of Federal or State law.” §1101(a)(43). The INA does not
expressly define sexual abuse of a minor.
We must decide whether a conviction under a
state statute criminalizing consensual sexual intercourse between a
21-year-old and a 17-year-old qualifies as sexual abuse of a minor
under the INA. We hold that it does not.
I
Petitioner Juan Esquivel-Quintana is a native
and citizen of Mexico. He was admitted to the United States as a
lawful permanent resident in 2000. In 2009, he pleaded no contest
in the Superior Court of California to a statutory rape offense:
“unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor who is more than three
years younger than the perpetrator,” Cal. Penal Code Ann. §261.5(c)
(West 2014); see also §261.5(a) (“Unlawful sexual intercourse is an
act of sexual intercourse accomplished with a person who is not the
spouse of the perpetrator, if the person is a minor”). For purposes
of that offense, California defines “minor” as “a person under the
age of 18 years.”
Ibid.
The Department of Homeland Security initiated
removal proceedings against petitioner based on that conviction. An
Immigration Judge concluded that the conviction qualified as
“sexual abuse of a minor,” 8 U. S. C. §1101(a)(43)(A),
and ordered petitioner removed to Mexico. The Board of Immigration
Appeals (Board) dismissed his appeal. 26 I. & N. Dec.
469 (2015). “[F]or a statutory rape offense involving a 16- or
17-year-old victim” to qualify as “ ‘sexual abuse of a
minor,’ ” it reasoned, “the statute must require a meaningful
age difference between the victim and the perpetrator.”
Id.,
at 477. In its view, the 3-year age difference required by Cal.
Penal Code §261.5(c) was meaningful.
Id., at 477.
Accordingly, the Board concluded that petitioner’s crime of
conviction was an aggravated felony, making him removable under the
INA.
Ibid. A divided Court of Appeals denied
Esquivel-Quintana’s petition for review, deferring to the Board’s
interpretation of sexual abuse of a minor under
Chevron
U. S. A. Inc. v.
Natural Resources Defense
Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984) . 810 F. 3d 1019
(CA6 2016); see also
id., at 1027 (Sutton, J., concurring in
part and dissenting in part). We granted certiorari, 580 U. S.
___ (2016), and now reverse.
II
Section 1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) makes aliens
removable based on the nature of their convictions, not based on
their actual conduct. See
Mellouli v.
Lynch, 575
U. S. ___, ___ (2015) (slip op., at 7). Accordingly, to
determine whether an alien’s conviction qualifies as an aggravated
felony under that section, we “employ a categorical approach by
looking to the statute . . . of conviction, rather than
to the specific facts underlying the crime.”
Kawashima v.
Holder, 565 U. S. 478, 483 (2012) ; see,
e.g.,
Gonzales v.
Duenas-Alvarez, 549 U. S. 183, 186
(2007) (applying the categorical approach set forth in
Taylor v.
United States, 495 U. S. 575 (1990) ,
to the INA). Under that approach, we ask whether “ ‘the state
statute defining the crime of conviction’ categorically fits within
the ‘generic’ federal definition of a corresponding aggravated
felony.”
Moncrieffe v.
Holder, 569 U. S. 184,
190 (2013) (quoting
Duenas-Alvarez,
supra, at 186).
In other words, we presume that the state conviction “rested upon
. . . the least of th[e] acts” criminalized by the
statute, and then we determine whether that conduct would fall
within the federal definition of the crime.
Johnson v.
United States, 559 U. S. 133, 137 (2010) ; see also
Moncrieffe,
supra, at 191 (focusing “on the minimum
conduct criminalized by the state statute”).[
1] Petitioner’s state conviction is thus an
“aggravated felony” under the INA only if the least of the acts
criminalized by the state statute falls within the generic federal
definition of sexual abuse of a minor.
A
Because Cal. Penal Code §261.5(c) criminalizes
“unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor who is more than three
years younger than the perpetrator” and defines a minor as someone
under age 18, the conduct criminalized under this provision would
be, at a minimum, consensual sexual intercourse between a victim
who is almost 18 and a perpetrator who just turned 21. Regardless
of the actual facts of petitioner’s crime, we must presume that his
conviction was based on acts that were no more criminal than that.
If those acts do not constitute sexual abuse of a minor under the
INA, then petitioner was not convicted of an aggravated felony and
is not, on that basis, removable.
Petitioner concedes that sexual abuse of a minor
under the INA includes some statutory rape offenses. But he argues
that a statutory rape offense based solely on the partners’ ages
(like the one here) is “ ‘abuse’ ” “only when the younger
partner is under 16.” Reply Brief 2. Because the California statute
criminalizes sexual intercourse when the victim is up to 17 years
old, petitioner contends that it does not categorically qualify as
sexual abuse of a minor.
B
We agree with petitioner that, in the context
of statutory rape offenses that criminalize sexual intercourse
based solely on the age of the participants, the generic federal
definition of sexual abuse of a minor requires that the victim be
younger than 16. Because the California statute at issue in this
case does not categorically fall within that definition, a
conviction pursuant to it is not an aggravated felony under
§1101(a)(43)(A). We begin, as always, with the text.
1
Section 1101(a)(43)(A) does not expressly
define sexual abuse of a minor, so we interpret that phrase using
the normal tools of statutory interpretation. “Our analysis begins
with the language of the statute.”
Leocal v.
Ashcroft, 543 U. S. 1, 8 (2004) ; see also
Lopez
v.
Gonzales, 549 U. S. 47, 53 (2006) (“The everyday
understanding of” the term used in §1101 “should count for a lot
here, for the statutes in play do not define the term, and so remit
us to regular usage to see what Congress probably meant”).
Congress added sexual abuse of a minor to the
INA in 1996, as part of a comprehensive immigration reform act. See
Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of
1996, §321(a)(i), 110Stat. 3009–627. At that time, the ordinary
meaning of “sexual abuse” included “the engaging in sexual contact
with a person who is below a specified age or who is incapable of
giving consent because of age or mental or physical incapacity.”
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law 454 (1996). By providing that
the abuse must be “of a minor,” the INA focuses on age, rather than
mental or physical incapacity. Accordingly, to qualify as sexual
abuse of a minor, the statute of conviction must prohibit certain
sexual acts based at least in part on the age of the victim.
Statutory rape laws are one example of this
category of crimes. Those laws generally provide that an older
person may not engage in sexual intercourse with a younger person
under a specified age, known as the “age of consent.” See
id., at 20 (defining “age of consent” as “the age at which a
person is deemed competent by law to give consent esp. to sexual
intercourse” and cross-referencing “statutory rape”). Many laws
also require an age differential between the two partners.
Although the age of consent for statutory rape
purposes varies by jurisdiction, see
infra, at 9, reliable
dictionaries provide evidence that the “generic” age—in 1996 and
today—is 16. See B. Garner, A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage 38
(2d ed. 1995) (“
Age of consent, usu[ally] 16, denotes the
age when one is legally capable of agreeing . . . to
sexual intercourse” and cross-referencing “statutory rape”);
Black’s Law Dictionary 73 (10th ed. 2014) (noting that the age of
consent is “usu[ally] defined by statute as 16 years”).
2
Relying on a different dictionary (and
“sparse” legislative history), the Government suggests an
alternative “ ‘everyday understanding’ ” of “sexual abuse
of a minor.” Brief for Respondent 16–17 (citing Black’s Law
Dictionary 1375 (6th ed. 1990)). Around the time sexual abuse of a
minor was added to the INA’s list of aggravated felonies, that
dictionary defined “[s]exual abuse” as “[i]llegal sex acts
performed against a minor by a parent, guardian, relative, or
acquaintance,” and defined “[m]inor” as “[a]n infant or person who
is under the age of legal competence,” which in “most states” was
“18.”
Id., at 997, 1375. “ ‘Sexual abuse of a
minor,’ ” the Government accordingly contends, “most naturally
connotes conduct that (1) is illegal, (2) involves sexual activity,
and (3) is directed at a person younger than 18 years old.” Brief
for Respondent 17.
We are not persuaded that the generic federal
offense corresponds to the Government’s definition. First, the
Government’s proposed definition is flatly inconsistent with the
definition of sexual abuse contained in the very dictionary on
which it relies; the Government’s proposed definition does not
require that the act be performed “
by a parent, guardian,
relative, or acquaintance.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1375 (6th
ed. 1990) (emphasis added). In any event, as we explain below,
offenses predicated on a special relationship of trust between the
victim and offender are not at issue here and frequently have a
different age requirement than the general age of consent. Second,
in the context of statutory rape, the prepositional phrase “of a
minor” naturally refers not to the age of legal competence (when a
person is legally capable of agreeing to a contract, for example),
but to the age of consent (when a person is legally capable of
agreeing to sexual intercourse). Third, the Government’s definition
turns the categorical approach on its head by defining the generic
federal offense of sexual abuse of a minor as whatever is illegal
under the particular law of the State where the defendant was
convicted. Under the Government’s preferred approach, there is no
“generic” definition at all. See
Taylor, 495 U. S., at
591 (requiring “a clear indication that . . . Congress
intended to abandon its general approach of using uniform
categorical definitions to identify predicate offenses”);
id., at 592 (“We think that ‘burglary’ in §924(e) must have
some uniform definition independent of the labels employed by the
various States’ criminal codes”).
C
The structure of the INA, a related federal
statute, and evidence from state criminal codes confirm that, for a
statutory rape offense to qualify as sexual abuse of a minor under
the INA based solely on the age of the participants, the victim
must be younger than 16.
1
Surrounding provisions of the INA guide our
interpretation of sexual abuse of a minor. See A. Scalia & B.
Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 167 (2012).
This offense is listed in the INA as an “
aggravated felony.”
8 U. S. C. §1227(a)(2)(A)(iii) (emphasis added). “An
‘aggravated’ offense is one ‘made worse or more serious by
circumstances such as violence, the presence of a deadly weapon, or
the intent to commit another crime.’ ”
Carachuri-Rosendo v.
Holder, 560 U. S. 563, 574
(2010) (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 75 (9th ed. 2009)).
Moreover, the INA lists sexual abuse of a minor in the
samesubparagraph as “murder” and “rape,” §1101(a)(43)(A)—among the
most heinous crimes it defines as aggravated felonies.
§1227(a)(2)(A)(iii). The structure of the INA therefore suggests
that sexual abuse of a minor encompasses only especially egregious
felonies.
A closely related federal statute, 18
U. S. C. §2243, provides further evidence that the
generic federal definition of sexual abuse of a minor incorporates
an age of consent of 16, at least in the context of statutory rape
offenses predicated solely on the age of the participants. Cf.
Leocal, 543 U. S., at 12–13, n. 9 (concluding that
Congress’ treatment of 18 U. S. C. §16 in an Act passed
“just nine months earlier” provided “stron[g] suppor[t]” for our
interpretation of §16 as incorporated into the INA);
Powerex
Corp. v.
Reliant Energy Services, Inc., 551 U. S.
224, 232 (2007) . Section 2243, which criminalizes “[s]exual abuse
of a minor or ward,” contains the only definition of that phrase in
the United States Code. As originally enacted in 1986, §2243
proscribed engaging in a “sexual act” with a person between the
ages of 12 and 16 if the perpetrator was at least four years older
than the victim. In 1996, Congress expanded §2243 to include
victims who were younger than 12, thereby protecting anyone under
the age of 16. §2243(a); see also §2241(c). Congress did this in
the same omnibus law that added sexual abuse of a minor to the INA,
which suggests that Congress understood that phrase to cover
victims under age 16.[
2] See
Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act, 1997, §§121(7), 321,
110Stat. 3009–31, 3009–627.
Petitioner does not contend that the definition
in §2243(a) must be imported wholesale into the INA, Brief for
Petitioner 17, and we do not do so. One reason is that the INA does
not cross-reference §2243(a), whereas many other aggravated
felonies in the INA are defined by cross-reference to other
provisions of the United States Code, see,
e.g.,
§1101(a)(43)(H) (“an offense described in section 875, 876, 877, or
1202 of Title 18 (relating to the demand for or receipt of
ransom)”). Another is that §2243(a) requires a 4-year age
difference between the perpetrator and the victim. Combining that
element with a 16-year age of consent would categorically exclude
the statutory rape laws of most States. See Brief for Respondent
34–35; cf.
Taylor, 495 U. S., at 594 (declining to
“constru[e] ‘burglary’ to mean common-law burglary,” because that
“would come close to nullifying that term’s effect in the statute,”
since “few of the crimes now generally recognized as burglaries
would fall within the common-law definition”). Accordingly, we rely
on §2243(a) for evidence of the meaning of sexual abuse of a minor,
but not as providing the complete or exclusive definition.
2
As in other cases where we have applied the
categorical approach, we look to state criminal codes for
additional evidence about the generic meaning of sexual abuse of a
minor. See
Taylor, 495 U. S., at 598 (interpreting
“ ‘bur-glary’ ” under the Armed Career Criminal Act of
1984 according to “the generic sense in which the term is now used
in the criminal codes of most States”);
Duenas-Alvarez, 549
U. S., at 190 (interpreting “theft” in the INA in the same
manner). When “sexual abuse of a minor” was added to the INA in
1996, thirty-one States and the District of Columbia set the age of
consent at 16 for statutory rape offenses that hinged solely on the
age of the participants. As for the other States, one set the age
of consent at 14; two set the age of consent at 15; six set the age
of consent at 17; and the remaining ten, including California, set
the age of consent at 18. See Appendix,
infra; cf. ALI,
Model Penal Code §213.3(1)(a) (1980) (in the absence of a special
relationship, setting the default age of consent at 16 for the
crime of “[c]orruption of [m]inors”).[
3] A significant majority of jurisdictions thus set the
age of consent at 16 for statutory rape offenses predicated
exclusively on the age of the participants.
Many jurisdictions set a different age of
consent for offenses that include an element apart from the age of
the participants, such as offenses that focus on whether the
perpetrator is in some special relationship of trust with the
victim. That was true in the two States that had offenses labeled
“sexual abuse of a minor” in 1996. See Alaska Stat. §11.41.438
(1996) (age of consent for third-degree “sexual abuse of a minor”
was 16 generally but 18 where “the offender occupie[d] a position
of authority in relation to the victim”); Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit.
17–A, §254(1) (1983), as amended by 1995 Me. Laws p. 123 (age of
consent for “[s]exual abuse of minors” was 16 generally but 18
where the victim was “a student” and the offender was “a teacher,
employee or other official in the . . . school
. . . in which the student [was] enrolled”). And that is
true in four of the five jurisdictions that have offenses titled
“sexual abuse of a minor” today. Compare,
e.g., D. C.
Code §§22–3001 (2012), 22–3008 (2016 Cum. Supp.) (age of consent is
16 in the absence of a significant relationship) with §22–3009.01
(age of consent is 18 where the offender “is in a significant
relationship” with the victim); see also Brief for Respondent 31
(listing statutes with that title). Accordingly, the generic crime
of sexual abuse of a minor may include a different age of consent
where the perpetrator and victim are in a significant relationship
of trust. As relevant to this case, however, the general consensus
from state criminal codes points to the same generic definition as
dictionaries and federal law: Where sexual intercourse is abusive
solely because of the ages of the participants, the victim must be
younger than 16.
D
The laws of many States and of the Federal
Government include a minimum age differential (in addition to an
age of consent) in defining statutory rape. We need not and do not
decide whether the generic crime of sexual abuse of a minor under 8
U. S. C. §1101(a)(43)(A) includes an additional element
of that kind. Petitioner has “show[n] something
special
about California’s version of the doctrine”—that the age of consent
is 18, rather than 16—and needs no more to prevail.
Duenas-Alvarez,
supra, at 191. Absent some special
relationship of trust, consensual sexual conduct involving a
younger partner who is at least 16 years of age does not qualify as
sexual abuse of a minor under the INA, regardless of the age
differential between the two participants. We leave for another day
whether the generic offense requires a particular age differential
between the victim and the perpetrator, and whether the generic
offense encompasses sexual intercourse involving victims over the
age of 16 that is abusive because of the nature of the relationship
between the participants.
III
Finally, petitioner and the Government debate
whether the Board’s interpretation of sexual abuse of a minor is
entitled to deference under
Chevron, 467 U. S. 837 .
Petitioner argues that any ambiguity in the meaning of this phrase
must be resolved in favor of the alien under the rule of lenity.
See Brief for Petitioner 41–45. The Government responds that
ambiguities should be resolved by deferring to the Board’s
interpretation. See Brief for Respondent 45–53. We have no need to
resolve whether the rule of lenity or
Chevron receives
priority in this case because the statute, read in context,
unambiguously forecloses the Board’s interpretation. Therefore,
neither the rule of lenity nor
Chevron applies.
* * *
We hold that in the context of statutory rape
offenses focused solely on the age of the participants, the generic
federal definition of “sexual abuse of a minor” under
§1101(a)(43)(A) requires the age of the victim to be less than 16.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals, accordingly, is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Gorsuch took no part in the
consideration or decision of this case.
APPENDIX
These tables list offenses criminalizing sexual
intercourse solely because of the age of the participants. The
tables are organized according to the statutory age of consent as
of September 30, 1996—the date “sexual abuse of a minor” was added
to the INA.
14 Years
15 Years
16 Years
17 Years
18 Years
