United States v. RessamUnited States v. Ressam
Lead
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent attempted to enter the United States by car ferry at Port Angeles, Washington. Hidden in the trunk of his rental car were explosives that he intended to detonate at the Los Angeles International Airport. After the ferry docked, respondent was questioned by a customs official, who instructed him to complete a customs declaration form; respondent did so, identifying himself on the fоrm as a Canadian citizen (he is Algerian) named Benni Noris (his name is Ahmed Ressam). Respondent was then directed to a secondary inspection station, where another official performed a search of his car. The official discovered explosives and related items in the car’s spare tire well.
Respondent was subsequently convicted of a number of crimes, including the felony of making a false statement to a United States customs official in violation of
I
The most natural reading of the relevant statutory text provides a sufficient basis for reversal. That text reads:
“Whoever—
“(1) uses fire or an explosive to commit any felony which may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, or
“(2) carries an explosive during the commission of any felony whiсh may be prosecuted in a court of the United States,
“including a felony which provides for an enhanced punishment if committed by the use of a deadly or dangerous weapon or device shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such felony, be sentenced toimprisonment for 10 years.” 18 U. S. C. §844(h) .
It is undisputed that the items hidden in respondent’s car were “explosives.”
There is no need to consult dictionary definitions of the word “during” in order to arrive at the conclusion that respondent engaged in the precise conduct described in
II
The history of the statute we construe today further supports our conclusion that Congress did not intend to require the Government to establish a relationship between the explosive carried and the underlying felony. Congress originally enacted
In 1984, Congress redrafted the firearm statute; it increased the penalties attached to the provision and, most significantly for our purposes, deleted the word “unlawfully” and inserted the words “and in relation to” immediately after the word “during.” § 1005(a), 98 Stat. 2138. Reviewing a conviction for an offense that was committed before the amendment but not decided on appeal until after its enactment, thе Ninth Circuit held that the original version of the firearm statute had implicitly included the “in relation to” requirement that was expressly added while the case was pending on appeal. As then-judge Kennedy explained:
“The statute as written when Stewart committed the offense provided in pertinent part that it was a crime to (carr[y] a firearm unlawfully during the commission of any felony____’18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(2) (1982). In 1984, Congress revisedsection 924(c) .... The 1984 amendment substituted for the word ‘during’ the phrase ‘during and in relation to.’18 U. S. C. A. § 924(c) (West Supp. 1985) (emphasis added). Our study of the legislative history of the amendment... indicates the ‘in relation to’ language was not intended to create an element of the crime that did not previously exist, but rather was intended to make clear a condition already implicit in the statute. The legislative history reveals that because the amendment eliminated thе requirement that the firearm be carried unlawfully,18 U. S. C. A. (West Supp. 1985), the ‘in relation to’ language was added to allay explicitly the concern that a person could be prosecuted under§ 924(c) section 924(e) for committing an entirely unrelated crime while in possession of a firearm. Though the legislative history does not say so expressly, it strongly implies that the ‘in relation to’ language did not alter the scope of the statute . . . .” United States v. Stewart,779 F. 2d 538 , 539-540 (1985) (citations omitted).
Relying on that Circuit precedent, the Court of Appeals in this case concluded that the explosives statute, like the firearm statute, implicitly included a requirement of a relationship between possession of the item in question and the underlying felony. Whatever the merits of the argument that
Ill
In 1988, Congress enacted the “Explosives Offenses Amendments,” § 6474(b), 102 Stat. 4379, which modified the text of
Even if the similarity of the original texts of the two statutes might have supported an inference that both included an implicit relationship requirement, their current difference virtually commands the opposite inference. While the twо provisions were initially identical, Congress’ replacement of the word “unlawfully” in the firearm statute with the phrase “and in relation to,” coupled with the deletion of the word “unlawfully” without any similar replacement in the explosives statute, convinces us that Congress did not intend to introduce a relational requirement into the explosives provision, but rather intended us to accept the more straightforward reading of
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Scalia joins, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
Because the plain language of the statute squarely answers the question presented in this case, I join only Part I of the Court’s opinion.
Notes
Both the Third and Fifth Circuits have declined to interpret
Because respondent concedes that the items in his car were “explosives,” we have no occasion to determine the boundaries of that term as used in the statute. Specifically, we do not cоmment on when, if ever, “such commonplace materials as kerosene, gasoline, or certain fertilizers,” post, at 278 (Breyer, J., dissenting), might fall within the definition of “explosive.”
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
The statute before us imposes a mandatory 10-year sentence on any person who “carries an explosive during the commission of any [federal] felony.”
I
My problem with the Court’s interpretation is that it would permit conviction of any individual who legally carries explosives at the time that he engages in a totally unrelated felony. “Explosives,” the statute tells us, includes not only obviously explosive material such as “gunpowders” and “dynamite” but also any “chemical compounds” or “mixturéis]” or “device[s]” whose “ignition by fire, by friction, by concussion” or other means “may cause an explosion.”
Consequently the Court’s opinion brings within the statute’s scope (and would impose an additional mandatory 10-year prison term upon), for example, a farmer lawfully transporting a load of fertilizer who intentionally mails an unauthorized lottery ticket to a friend, a hunter lawfully carrying gunpowder for shotgun shells who buys snaсks with a counterfeit $20 bill, a truckdriver lawfully transporting diesel fuel who lies to a customs official about the value of presents he bought in Canada for his family, or an accountant who engaged in a 6-year-long conspiracy to commit tax evasion and who, one day during that conspiracy, bought gas for his lawnmower. In such instances the lawful carrying of an “explosive” has nothing whatsoever to do with the unlawful fеlonies. I cannot imagine why Congress would have wanted the presence of totally irrelevant, lawful behavior to trigger an additional 10-year mandatory prison term.
The statute’s language does not demand such an interpretation. I agree with the majority that the word “during” requires a “temporal link.” See ante, at 274. But a statement that uses the word “during” may or may not imply other limitations as well, depending upon the context in which the statement is made. Thus, when I tell a friend from Puerto Rico, “I wear gloves during Washington’s winter,” he does not think I mean baseball mitts. Rather, I imply (and he understands) a relation or link between the gloves and the winter. When I say to a group of lawyers, “I take notes during oral argument,” I imply (and they understand) that the notes bear a relation to the law being argued. But when I say, “I called my brother during the day,” I dо not imply any particular relation (other than a temporal relation) between the day and the phone call. Context makes the difference.
Here, the statute’s context makes clear that the statutory statement does not cover a “carrying]” of explosives that is totally unrelated to the “felony.” The lengthy mandatory minimum sentence is evidence of what the statute’s legislative history separately indicates, namely, that Congress sought to criminalize and impose harsh penalties in respect to the “intentional misuse of explosives,” see H. R. Rep. No. 91-1549, p. 38 (1970) (hereinafter H. R. Rep.) (emphasis added). A person who lawfully carries explosives while committing some other felony does not even arguably “misuse” those explosives unless the carrying has something to do with the other felony. Nor in the absence of some such relationship is there
Similar reasoning led the Ninth Circuit in 1985 to interpret a related statute, which punished the carrying of a firearm “during” the commission of a federal felony, as requiring a significant relationship between the firearms carrying and the other felony. See United States v. Stewart,
I recognize that the language of the firearms statute now differs from the language of the explosives statute in an important way. The firearms statute originally punished (with a l-to-10-yeаr sentence) a person who “carries a firearm unlawfully during the commission of any [federal] felony.”
The words “in relation to” do not appear in the explosives statute. But neither did those words appear in the pre-1984 version of the firearms statute that was the subject of the Ninth Circuit opinion in Stewart (yet the Ninth Circuit nonetheless found an implicit relational requirement). And the fact that these words now appear in the firearms statutе but not the explosives statute cannot make the determinative difference.
The history of the firearms statute makes clear that the reason Congress added to that statute the words “in relation to” has to do with Congress’ decision to remove from the firearms statute the word “unlawfully.” By removing that word, Congress indicated that the firearms statute should apply to “persons who are licensеd to carry firearms” but who “abuse that privilege by committing a crime with the weapon.” S. Rep. No. 98-225, p. 314, n. 10 (1983). At the same time, however, Congress believed that the statute should not apply where the firearm’s presence “played no part in the crime, such as a gun carried in a pocket and never displayed or referred to in the course of a pugilistic barroom fight.” Ibid. The addition of thе words “in relation, to” made this dual objective textually clear.
The absence of the words “in relation to” here must lead us to ask (but it does not answer) the question: Did Congress intend something different in respect to the explosives statute? There are strong reasons for thinking it did not. Congress, after all, amended the explosives statute in response to the Department of Justice’s express rеquest to “bring” the explosives statute “in line with” the firearms statute.
Further, to read the two statutes differently would break the very parallel treatment of firearms and explosives that led Congress, at the Department of Justice’s urging, to amend the explosives statute in the first place. It would produce the peculiar and unfair results I previously mentioned. See supra, at 278-279. It would conflict with Congress’ original rationale for enacting the explosives statute (to punish the misuse of explosives). And it would risk incoherent results: Why would Congress wish not to punish a policeman for carrying an unrelated revolver during the commission of a felony, but then wish to punish that same policeman for carrying unrelated gunpowder for unrelated bullets?
At the same time one can explain the absence of the words “in relation to” in less damaging ways. The legislative drafters of the explosives amendment may have assumed that prior judicial interpretation (namely, United States v. Stewart, supra) made the words “in relation to” unnecessary. See Lorillard v. Pons,
I concede that the presence of a phrase in one statute and the absencе of the same phrase in another related statute can signal an intended difference in relative statutory scope. But that is not inevitably so. Cf. Russello v. United States,
No more here than elsewhere in life can words alone explain every nuance of their intended application. Context matters. And if judges are to give meaningful effect to the intent of the enacting legislature, they must interpret statutory text with reference to the statute’s purpose and its history.
The Court, with its deсision today, makes possible the strange results I describe above precisely because it resolves the statutory interpretation question by examining the meaning of just one word in isolation. In context, however, the language excludes from the statute’s scope instances in which there is no significant relation between the explosives carrying and the felony. A contextual interрretation furthers Congress’ original purpose, is less likely to encourage random punishment, and is consistent with the statute’s overall history. As a result, like the Ninth Circuit, I would read the statute as insisting
II
At the same time, I cannot agree with the Ninth Circuit that the statute restricts the requisite relationship to one in which the carrying of the explosives “‘facilitated’” (or “aided”) the felony.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.