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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
Nos. 19–108 and 19–184
_________________
UNITED STATES, PETITIONER
19–108
v.
MICHAEL J. D. BRIGGS
UNITED STATES, PETITIONER
19–184
v.
RICHARD D. COLLINS
UNITED STATES, PETITIONER
v.
HUMPHREY DANIELS, III
on writs of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the armed forces
[December 10, 2020]
Justice Alito delivered the opinion of the
Court.
We must decide in these cases whether, under the
Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), a prosecution for a rape
committed during the period from 1986 to 2006 had to be commenced
within five years of the commission of the charged offense or
whether such a prosecution could be brought at any time, as is the
rule at present. The Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (CAAF),
reversing its prior decisions on this question, held that the
statute of limitations was five years and that it therefore barred
the rape convictions of respondents, three military service
members. See 78 M.J. 289 (2019); 78 M.J. 415 (2019); 79 M.J. 199
(2019). We granted certiorari, 589 U. S. ___ (2019), and now
reverse.
I
The question before us is important, and there
are reasonable arguments on both sides, but resolving the question
does not require lengthy analysis. During the period at issue,
Article 120(a) of the UCMJ provided that rape could be “punished by
death,” 10 U. S. C. §920(a) (1982 ed.); §920(a) (1994
ed.), and Article 43(a), which was amended in 1986, provided that
an offense “punishable by death” could be tried and punished “at
any time without limitation,” National Defense Authorization Act
for Fiscal Year 1987, 100Stat. 3908; see 10 U. S. C.
§843(a) (1988 ed.). The crux of the question before us is the
meaning of the phrase “punishable by death” in the latter
provision. Respondents contend—and the CAAF held—that the phrase
means capable of punishment by death
when all applicable law is
taken into account. See
United States v.
Mangahas, 77 M.J. 220, 224 (2018). Because this Court held
in
Coker v.
Georgia,
433 U.S.
584, 592 (1977), that the Eighth Amendment forbids a death
sentence for the rape of an adult woman, respondents argue that
they could not, in fact, have been sentenced to death, and
therefore the statute of limitations for their crimes (committed in
1998, 2000, and 2005) was the 5-year statute that generally
governed non-capital offenses. See 10 U. S. C. §843(b)(1)
(1994 ed.); §843(b)(1) (2000 ed.). By contrast, the Government
argues that Article 43(a)’s reference to “punishable by death”
means capable of punishment by death
under the penalty
provisions of the UCMJ, and since Article 120(a) provided
(despite
Coker) that rape could be punished by death, it
follows that there was no time limit for filing rape charges
against respondents.
The interpretation advocated by respondents and
adopted by the CAAF finds support at first blush in contemporaneous
dictionary definitions of the term “punishable.” See 12 Oxford
English Dictionary 845 (2d ed. 1989) (“Liable to punishment;
capable of being punished. . . . Of an offence:
Entailing punishment”); Webster’s Third New International
Dictionary 1843 (1986) (“deserving of, or liable to, punishment:
capable of being punished by law or right”); Black’s Law Dictionary
1110 (5th ed. 1979) (“Deserving of or capable or liable to
punishment; capable of being punished by law or right”); Random
House Dictionary of the English Language 1165 (1966) (“liable to or
deserving punishment”). But upon inspection, definitions shed
little light on the dispute because they largely re-raise the
question over which the parties divide: capable of being punished
under what law? In essence, the Government sees the term
“punishable” in Article 43(a) as something of a term of art that is
defined by the specification of the punishments set out in the
penalty provisions of the UCMJ.
II
On balance, we find the Government’s
interpretation more persuasive. The meaning of a statement often
turns on the context in which it is made, and that is no less true
of statutory language. See
Tyler v.
Cain,
533 U.S.
656, 662 (2001);
Deal v.
United States,
508 U.S.
129, 132 (1993); A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law 167
(2012). And in these cases, context is determinative. The phrase
“punishable by death” appears in a statute of limitations provision
for prosecutions under the UCMJ, and for at least three reasons,
that context weighs heavily in favor of the Government’s
interpretation.
A
First, a natural referent for a statute of
limitations provision within the UCMJ is other law in the UCMJ
itself. The UCMJ is, after all, a “uniform code,” one that reformed
and modernized the old system of military justice “from top to
bottom.”
Burns v.
Wilson,
346
U.S. 137, 141 (1953). No one would read Article 43’s references
to “offense[s]” to include those under state law, for example.
Rather, the UCMJ establishes the jurisdiction of general
courts-martial “to try persons subject to this chapter for any
offense made punishable by this chapter.” 10 U. S. C.
§818 (1982 ed.). Courts-martial may then “adjudge any punishment
not forbidden by this chapter, including the penalty of death when
specifically authorized by this chapter.”
Ibid. “[T]his
chapter” is the UCMJ, §801
et seq., and during the
relevant time period, provisions within that chapter like Article
120 specifically authorized the death penalty for certain serious
offenses, see,
e.g., §894 (mutiny or sedition); §899
(misbehavior before the enemy); §900 (subordinate compelling
surrender); §901 (improper use of countersign); §902 (forcing a
safeguard); §904 (aiding the enemy); §906 (spies); §918 (murder).
When amending Article 43(a), the 1986 Congress appears simply to
have saved itself the trouble of maintaining a long list of such
offenses. Cf. §843(a) (1982 ed.) (listing “aiding the enemy,
mutiny, or murder”). In the context of the UCMJ, therefore, Article
120’s directive that rape could be “punished by death” is the most
natural place to look for Congress’s answer to whether rape was
“punishable by death” within the meaning of Article 43(a). We think
that is so even if, as respondents argue, the separate prohibition
on “cruel or unusual punishment” in Article 55 of the UCMJ would
have been held to provide an independent defense against the
imposition of the death penalty for rape. 10 U. S. C.
§855 (1982 ed.).
B
Second, one principal benefit of statutes of
limitations is that typically they provide clarity, see
United
States v.
Lovasco,
431 U.S.
783, 789 (1977) (“[S]tatutes of limitations . . .
provide predictable, legislatively enacted limits on prosecutorial
delay . . . ”);
Artis v.
District of
Columbia, 583 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 19)
(noting that one “primary purpos[e]” of limitations statutes in the
civil context is “preventing surprises” to defendants (internal
quotation marks omitted)), and it is therefore reasonable to
presume that clarity is an objective for which lawmakers strive
when enacting such provisions. Other things being equal, certainty
in statutes of limitations generally serves the interests of all
concerned, and that is certainly true with respect to the statute
of limitations for rape. For prosecutors handling such cases, it is
obviously helpful to know the deadline by which charges must be
filed. For persons who know they may be under investigation, a
known statute of limitations provides a date after which they may
no longer fear arrest and trial. And for rape victims, who often
wrestle with the painful decision whether to identify their
attackers and press charges, a clear deadline allows them to know
by when they must make that choice.
If “punishable by death” in Article 43(a) means
punish-able by death under the penalty provisions of the UCMJ, the
rule regarding the latest possible date for commencing a rape
prosecution is clear: The prosecution may be brought “at any time
without limitation.” By contrast, if “punishable by death” meant
punishable by death after all applicable law is taken into account,
the deadline for filing rape charges would be unclear. The deadline
would depend on the answer to an unresolved constitutional question
about which the parties in these cases vigorously disagree.
Respondents argue that the logic of the decision in
Coker
applies equally to civilian and military prosecutions, but the
Government contends that the military context dictates a different
outcome. Among other things, the Government argues that a rape
committed by a service member may cause special damage by
critically undermining unit cohesion and discipline and that, in
some circumstances, the crime may have serious international
implications.
That also appears to have been the view of
Congress and the Executive. After
Coker was decided in 1977,
Congress changed the maximum penalty for rape in civilian cases
from death to life imprisonment, see Sexual Abuse Act of 1986,
100Stat. 3663, but it made no such change in the UCMJ. On the
contrary, in 2006 Congress noted that death would remain an
available punishment for rape “[u]ntil the President otherwise
provide[d].” National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2006, 119Stat. 3263. And Presidents continued until 2016 to provide
for death as a permissible punishment for rape under the UCMJ. See
Exec. Order No. 13740, 3 CFR 510 (2016).
If Article 43(a) meant what respondents claim
and what the CAAF held, Congress would have adopted a statute of
limitations provision without knowing with certainty what it would
mean. Indeed, Congress would have adopted a statute of limitations
provision the meaning of which would not be settled until this
Court decided the disputed question of
Coker’s applicability
to the military, and there was no reason to think at the time of
Article 43(a)’s amendment in 1986 that this Court would resolve
that question any time soon. We have never considered a direct
Eighth Amendment challenge to a sentence of death for rape under
the UCMJ. And it was predictable that we would not reach the
statute of limitations question until cases like those now before
us came up for review—that is, until we had occasion to consider
cases in which defendants were convicted after being charged more
than five years after the commission of the offense. That state of
affairs virtually guaranteed that the statute of limitations for
rape under the UCMJ would be up in the air for years.
And the uncertainty would not end there. This
Court has held that the Eighth Amendment incorporates
“ ‘
evolving standards of decency.’ ”
Kennedy v.
Louisiana,
554 U.S.
407, 419 (2008) (quoting
Trop v.
Dulles,
356 U.S.
86, 101 (1958) (plurality opinion); emphasis added). Thus, even
if we were to hold that rape could be punished by death in the
military context, the evolving-standards test could later lead to a
different result and thus a different statute of limitations at
some point in the future. Such evolution has been held to have
occurred on a number of past occasions. Compare
Atkins v.
Virginia,
536 U.S.
304, 321 (2002) ( Eighth Amendment prohibits death penalty for
defendant described as mentally retarded), with
Penry v.
Lynaugh,
492 U.S.
302, 340 (1989) ( Eighth Amendment permits death penalty for
such a defendant); compare also
Roper v.
Simmons,
543 U.S.
551, 574–575 (2005) ( Eighth Amendment prohibits death penalty
for crime committed by person under 18 years of age), with
Stanford v.
Kentucky,
492 U.S.
361, 380 (1989) ( Eighth Amendment permits death penalty for
defendants who are at least 16 years of age).
Finally, if “punishable by death” under Article
43(a) meant punishable by death when all applicable law is taken
into account, the statute of limitations would also turn on
whether, as respondents now maintain, Article 55 of the UCMJ
independently prohibits a death sentence for rape. Article 55
forbids “cruel or unusual punishment[s],” 10 U. S. C.
§855; §855 (1982 ed.), and here again respondents and the
Government offer different interpretations. Respondents argue that
Article 55 of its own force applies
Coker’s rule to the
military, while the Government maintains that Article 55 cannot
reasonably be read to forbid a punishment that another provision of
the UCMJ specifically authorizes.
In short, if we accepted the interpretation of
Article 43(a) adopted by the CAAF and defended by respondents, we
would have to conclude that this provision set out a statute of
limitations that no one could have understood with any real
confidence until important and novel legal questions were resolved
by this Court. That is not the sort of limitations provision that
Congress is likely to have chosen.
C
Third, the factors that lawmakers are likely
to take into account when fixing the statute of limitations for a
crime differ significantly from the considerations that underlie
our Eighth Amendment decisions. We therefore should not lightly
assume that Congress tied the meaning of the statutes of
limitations in Article 43 to the Eighth Amendment. One factor that
legislators may find important in setting the statute of
limitations for a crime is the difficulty of gathering evidence and
mounting a prosecution for that offense. This factor may have been
influential in calibrating the statutes of limitations for rape and
other sexual offenses in more recent years. The trauma inflicted by
such crimes may impede the gathering of the evidence needed to
bring charges. Victims may be hesitant for some time after the
offense about agreeing to testify. Thus, under current federal law,
many such offenses are subject to no statute of limitations. See 18
U. S. C. §3299 (permitting prosecution at any time for
felonies under §§2241–2248, 2251–2256, 2258–2260A, and 2421–2429);
see also 10 U. S. C. §843(a) (expressly setting no
limitations period under UCMJ for prosecuting rape, sexual assault,
and rape or sexual assault of a child).
This factor—the difficulty of assembling
evidence and putting together a prosecution—obviously plays no part
in our Eighth Amendment analysis. As noted, in deciding whether the
Eighth Amendment permits a death sentence for a particular category
of offenses or offenders, the Court has looked to evolving societal
standards of decency and has also rendered its own independent
judgment about whether a death sentence would aptly serve the
recognized purposes of criminal punishment in certain categories of
cases. See
Kennedy, 554 U. S., at 419–421, 441–446;
Roper, 543 U. S., at 561, 571–575;
Atkins, 536
U. S., at 318–321. Some Justices have eschewed aspects of
those approaches and have looked instead to the original
understanding of the Eighth Amendment. See,
e.g.,
Graham v.
Florida,
560 U.S.
48, 99–102 (2010) (Thomas, J., dissenting);
Atkins, 536
U. S., at 348–349 (Scalia, J., dissenting);
Thompson v.
Oklahoma,
487 U.S.
815, 864, 872–873 (1988) (same); cf.
Glossip v.
Gross, 576 U.S. 863, 894, 898–899 (2015) (Scalia, J.,
concurring). But under either method, the inquiry is quite
different from the one that a lawmaker might make in fixing a
statute of limitations. Accordingly, since the ends served by
statutes of limitations differ sharply from those served by
provisions like the Eighth Amendment or Article 55 of the UCMJ, it
is unlikely that lawmakers would want to tie a statute of
limitations to judicial interpretations of such provisions.
* * *
Viewing Article 43(a) in context, we are
convinced that “punishable by death” is a term of art that is
defined by the provisions of the UCMJ specifying the punishments
for the offenses it outlaws. And under this interpretation,
respondents’ prosecutions were timely.
The judgments of the CAAF are reversed, and the
cases are remanded for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Barrett took no part in the
consideration or decision of these cases.
