WOODEN v. UNITED STATES
No. 20-5279
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Argued October 4, 2021—Decided March 7, 2022
595 U.S. ___ (2022)
KAGAN, J.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
WOODEN v. UNITED STATES
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
No. 20-5279. Argued October 4, 2021—Decided March 7, 2022
A jury convicted William Dale Wooden of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of
Held: Wooden‘s ten burglary offenses arising from a single criminal episode did not occur on different “occasions” and thus count as only one prior conviction for purposes of ACCA. Pp. 4–15.
(a) Wooden‘s successive burglaries occurred on one “occasion” under a natural construction of that term. An ordinary person using language in its normal way would describe Wooden‘s entries into the stor-
(b) Given what “occasion” ordinarily means, whether criminal activities occurred on one occasion or different occasions requires a multi-factored inquiry that may depend on a range of circumstances, including timing, location, and the character and relationship of the offenses. For the most part, the determination will be straightforward and intuitive. In many cases, a single factor—especially of time or place—can decisively differentiate occasions. In hard cases, the inquiry may involve keeping an eye on ACCA‘s history and purpose. Here, every relevant consideration shows that Wooden burglarized ten storage units on a single occasion. Indeed it was because the burglaries “ar[ose] from the same conduct” that Georgia law required the prosecutor to charge all ten in a single indictment.
(c) Statutory history and purpose confirm the Court‘s view of the occasions clause‘s meaning, as well as the Court‘s conclusion that Wooden is not a career offender. Congress added the occasions clause only after a court applied ACCA‘s enhancement to Samuel Petty—an offender who, much like Wooden, was convicted of multiple counts of robbery for one night in one restaurant. See United States v. Petty, 798 F. 2d 1157. Petty sought review in this Court, and the Solicitor General confessed error, stating that ACCA should not be construed to reach multiple felony convictions arising out of a single criminal episode. Shortly thereafter, Congress amended ACCA to require that the
945 F. 3d 498, reversed.
KAGAN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAVANAUGH, JJ., joined, and in which THOMAS, ALITO, and BARRETT, JJ., joined as to all but Part II-B. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed a concurring opinion. KAVANAUGH, J., filed a concurring opinion. BARRETT, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which THOMAS, J., joined. GORSUCH, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which SOTOMAYOR, J., joined as to Parts II, III, and IV.
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 20–5279
WILLIAM DALE WOODEN, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
[March 7, 2022]
JUSTICE KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court.
In the course of one evening, William Dale Wooden burglarized ten units in a single storage facility. He later pleaded guilty, for that night‘s work, to ten counts of burglary—one for each storage unit he had entered. Some two decades later, the courts below concluded that those convictions were enough to subject Wooden to enhanced criminal penalties under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA). That statute mandates a 15-year minimum sentence for unlawful gun possession when the offender has three or more prior convictions for violent felonies like burglary “committed on occasions different from one another.”
Begin in 1997, when Wooden and three confederates unlawfully entered a one-building storage facility at 100 Williams Road in Dalton, Georgia, next door to Wooden‘s home. The burglars proceeded from unit to unit within the facility, “crushing the interior drywall” between them. App. 32 (indictment); see Addendum to Brief for Petitioner 6a (statement of Assistant District Attorney at plea hearing) (“[O]nce they made entry” into the facility, they “burrowed through from . . . unit to unit“). The men stole items from, all told, ten different storage units. So Georgia prosecutors charged them with ten counts of burglary—though, as state law prescribes, in a single indictment. See
Fast forward now to a cold November morning in 2014, when Wooden responded to a police officer‘s knock on his door. The officer asked to speak with Wooden‘s wife. And noting the chill in the air, the officer asked if he could step inside, to stay warm. Wooden agreed. But his good deed did not go unpunished. Once admitted to the house, the officer spotted several guns. Knowing that Wooden was a felon, the officer placed him under arrest. A jury later convicted him for being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of
The penalty for that crime varies significantly depending on whether ACCA applies. Putting ACCA aside, the maximum sentence for violating
The District Court‘s sentencing hearing focused on whether Wooden‘s ten convictions for breaking into the storage facility sufficed to trigger ACCA. Wooden said they did not because he had burglarized the ten storage units on a single occasion, rather than “on occasions different from one another.”
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the sentence, on the same reasoning. “[I]t is possible,” the court stated, “to discern the point at which Wooden‘s first offense” was “completed and the subsequent point at which his second offense began.” 945 F. 3d 498, 505 (2019). After all, “Wooden could not be in two (let alone ten) of [the storage units] at once.” Ibid. In the court‘s view, the sequential nature of Wooden‘s crimes—his progression from one unit in the storage facility to the next to the next—meant that the crimes were “committed on occasions different from one another.” And so, the court concluded, Wooden qualified as a career offender under ACCA.
II
Framed in terms of this case, the disputed question is whether Wooden committed his crimes on a single occasion or on ten separate ones.
The Government answers ten, relying on a legally fancified version of the Sixth Circuit‘s timing test. In the ACCA context, the Government argues, an “occasion” happens “at a particular point in time“—the moment “when [an offense‘s] elements are established.” Brief for United States 9. So offenses “occur on different ‘occasions’ when the criminal conduct necessary to satisfy the offense elements occurs at different times.” Id., at 13. Applying that elements-based, “temporal-distinctness test” to this case, the Government explains that Wooden‘s burglaries were “quintessentially sequential, rather than simultaneous.” Id., at 10, 20. After all, a person can satisfy the elements of burglary only
We think not. The ordinary meaning of the word “occasion“—essentially an episode or event—refutes the Government‘s single-minded focus on whether a crime‘s elements were established at a discrete moment in time. And ACCA‘S history and purpose do so too: The origin of the “occasions” clause confirms that multiple crimes may occur on one occasion even if not at the same moment. Wooden‘s night of crime is a perfect case in point. His one-after-another-after-another burglary of ten units in a single storage facility occurred on one “occasion,” under a natural construction of that term and consistent with the reason it became part of ACCA.
A
Consider first how an ordinary person (a reporter; a police officer; yes, even a lawyer) might describe Wooden‘s ten burglaries—and how she would not. The observer might say: “On one occasion, Wooden burglarized ten units in a storage facility.” By contrast, she would never say: “On ten occasions, Wooden burglarized a unit in the facility.” Nor would she say anything like: “On one occasion, Wooden burglarized a storage unit; on a second occasion, he burglarized another unit; on a third occasion, he burglarized yet another; and so on.” She would, using language in its normal way, group his entries into the storage units, even though not simultaneous, all together—as happening on a single occasion, rather than on ten “occasions different from one another.”
The same is true (to shift gears from the felicitous to the felonious) when it comes to crime. In that sphere too, an “occasion” means an event or episode—which may, in common usage, include temporally discrete offenses. Consider a couple of descriptions from this Court‘s cases. “On one occasion,” we noted, “Bryant hit his live-in girlfriend on the head with a beer bottle and attempted to strangle her.” United States v. Bryant, 579 U. S. 140, 151 (2016). “On one occasion“—regardless whether those acts occurred at once (as the Government would require) or instead succeeded one another. Id. Likewise, we said: “[T]he State has stipulated that the robbery and murder arose out of ‘the same set of facts, circumstances, and the same occasion.‘” Turner v. Arkansas, 407 U. S. 366, 368–369 (1972) (per curiam). “[T]he same occasion“—irrespective whether the murder took place during (as the Government insists on) or instead just after the robbery. Id. Or take a hypothetical suggested by oral argument here: A barroom brawl breaks out, and a patron hits first one, then another, and then a third
By treating each temporally distinct offense as its own occasion, the Government goes far toward collapsing two separate statutory conditions. Recall that ACCA kicks in only if (1) a
For the most part, applying this approach will be straightforward and intuitive. In the Circuits that have used it, we can find no example (nor has the Government offered one) of judges coming out differently on similar facts. In many cases, a single factor—especially of time or place—can decisively differentiate occasions. Courts, for instance, have nearly always treated offenses as occurring on separate occasions if a person committed them a day or more apart, or at a “significant distance.” United States v. Rideout, 3 F. 3d 32, 35 (CA2 1993); see, e.g., United States v. Riddle, 47 F. 3d 460, 462 (CA1 1995) (per curiam). In other cases, the inquiry just as readily shows a single occasion, because all the factors cut that way. That is true, for example, in our barroom-brawl hypothetical, where the offender has engaged in a continuous stream of closely related criminal acts at one location. Of course, there will be some hard cases in between, as under almost any legal test. When that is so, assessing the relevant circumstances may also involve keeping an eye on ACCA‘s history and purpose,
And surely, this one does not. Here, every relevant consideration shows that Wooden burglarized ten storage units on a single occasion, even though his criminal activity resulted in double-digit convictions. Wooden committed his burglaries on a single night, in a single uninterrupted course of conduct. The crimes all took place at one location, a one-building storage facility with one address. Each offense was essentially identical, and all were intertwined with the others. The burglaries were part and parcel of the same scheme, actuated by the same motive, and accomplished by the same means. Indeed, each burglary in some sense facilitated the next, as Wooden moved from unit to unit to unit, all in a row. And reflecting all these facts, Georgia law treated the burglaries as integrally connected. Because they “ar[ose] from the same conduct,” the prosecutor had to charge all ten in a single indictment.
B
Statutory history and purpose confirm our view of the occasions clause‘s meaning, as well as our conclusion that Wooden is not a career offender. For the first four years of its existence, ACCA asked only about offenses, not about occasions. Its enhanced penalties, that is, kicked in whenever a
In that precipitating case, Samuel Petty received ACCA‘s minimum 15-year penalty for gun possession based on his earlier stickup of a Manhattan restaurant. Petty and three associates had entered the establishment brandishing an assortment of guns and ordered the patrons and employees to the floor. See Addendum to Brief for Petitioner 11a–12a (New York State‘s brief). The gunmen then made their way around the premises, collecting money and other valuables from the prostrate victims. See id., at 12a–17a. For his role in the crime, Petty was convicted of six counts of robbery—one count for each of six individuals whose property had been taken—and served concurrent 5-year sentences. See United States v. Petty, 798 F. 2d 1157, 1159–1160 (CA8 1986). Some years later, Petty was caught possessing a firearm and convicted of violating
But when Petty sought this Court‘s review, the Solicitor General confessed error, stating that ACCA should not be construed “to reach multiple felony convictions arising out of a single criminal episode.” Addendum to Brief for Petitioner 30a–31a. In taking that position—requiring the convictions to come instead from “multiple criminal episodes“—the Solicitor General could not rely on ACCA‘s text. Id., at 26a. He acknowledged that ACCA lacked language found in other penalty-enhancement laws requiring prior crimes to have occurred on “occasions different from one another.” Id., at 25a–26a (quoting
That statutory change, rejecting the original outcome in Petty in light of the Solicitor General‘s confession of error, is at odds with the Government‘s current view of the occasions clause. After all, that view does not (as the former
The history of the occasions clause thus aligns with what this Court has always recognized as ACCA‘s purpose. Congress enacted ACCA to address the “special danger” posed by the eponymous “armed career criminal.” Begay v. United States, 553 U. S. 137, 146 (2008). The theory of the statute
Wooden‘s burglary of a storage facility does not create that kind of case, any more than Petty‘s robbery of a restaurant did. Wooden‘s convictions, much like Petty‘s, arose from a closely related set of acts occurring on the same night, at the same place—making up, just as the former Solicitor General said, “a single criminal episode.” Addendum to Brief for Petitioner 31a; see supra, at 11. Wooden did not become a career criminal when he moved from the second storage unit to the third, as Petty did not when he moved from the second to the third of the restaurant‘s patrons. Wooden and Petty both served significant sentences for their crimes, and rightly so. But in enacting the occasions clause, Congress made certain that crimes like theirs, taken alone, would not subject a person to a 15-year minimum sentence for illegally possessing a gun.
III
For the reasons stated, Wooden‘s ten burglary convictions were for offenses committed on a single occasion. They therefore count only once under ACCA. We reverse the
It is so ordered.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 20–5279
WILLIAM DALE WOODEN, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
[March 7, 2022]
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, concurring.
I join the opinion of the Court because on the facts of this case, it is clear that Wooden‘s prior convictions did not take place “on occasions different from one another,” as required for the sentencing enhancement to apply.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 20–5279
WILLIAM DALE WOODEN, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
[March 7, 2022]
JUSTICE KAVANAUGH, concurring.
I join the Court‘s opinion in full. In light of JUSTICE GORSUCH‘s thoughtful concurrence in the judgment, I write separately to briefly explain why the rule of lenity has appropriately played only a very limited role in this Court‘s criminal case law. And I further explain how another principle—the presumption of mens rea—can address JUSTICE GORSUCH‘s important concern, which I share, about fair notice in federal criminal law.
A common formulation of the rule of lenity is as follows: If a federal criminal statute is grievously ambiguous, then the statute should be interpreted in the criminal defendant‘s favor. See Ocasio v. United States, 578 U. S. 282, 295, n. 8 (2016). Importantly, the rule of lenity does not apply when a law merely contains some ambiguity or is difficult to decipher. As this Court has often said, the rule of lenity applies only when “‘after seizing everything from which aid can be derived,‘” the statute is still grievously ambiguous. Ibid. (quoting Muscarello v. United States, 524 U. S. 125, 138–139 (1998)); see Shular v. United States, 589 U. S. ___ (2020) (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring) (slip op., at 1, 3). The rule “comes into operation at the end of the process of construing what Congress has expressed, not at the beginning as an overriding consideration of being lenient to wrongdoers.” Callanan v. United States, 364 U. S. 587, 596
(1961). Our repeated use of the term “grievous ambiguity” underscores that point. See, e.g., Shaw v. United States, 580 U. S. 63, 71 (2016); Salman v. United States, 580 U. S. 39, 51 (2016); Abramski v. United States, 573 U. S. 169, 188, n. 10 (2014).
Properly applied, the rule of lenity therefore rarely if ever plays a role because, as in other contexts, “hard interpretive conundrums, even relating to complex rules, can often be solved.” Kisor v. Wilkie, 588 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (slip op., at 14); see also Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843, n. 9 (1984). And if “a reviewing court employs all of the traditional tools of construction, the court will almost always reach a conclusion about the best interpretation of the [law] at issue.” Kisor, 588 U. S., at ___ (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 1).
In short, because a court must exhaust all the tools of statutory interpretation before resorting to the rule of lenity, and because a court that does so often determines the best reading of the statute, the rule of lenity rarely if ever comes into play. In other words, “if lenity invariably comes in ‘last,’ it should essentially come in never.” D. Kahan, Lenity and Federal Common Law Crimes, 1994 S. Ct. Rev. 345, 386. As I see it, that explains why this Court rarely relies on the rule of lenity, at least as a decisive factor.
I would not upset our rule of lenity case law by making the ambiguity trigger any easier to satisfy. For example, I would not say that any front-end ambiguity in the statute justifies resort to the rule of lenity even before exhausting the tools of statutory interpretation. One major problem with that kind of ambiguity trigger is that ambiguity is in the eye of the beholder and cannot be readily determined on an objective basis. Applying a looser front-end ambiguity trigger would just exacerbate that problem, leading to significant inconsistency, unpredictability, and unfairness in
For those reasons, I would not alter our rule of lenity case law. That said, I very much agree with JUSTICE GORSUCH about the importance of fair notice in federal criminal law. But as I see it, that concern for fair notice is better addressed by other doctrines that protect criminal defendants against arbitrary or vague federal criminal statutes—in particular, the presumption of mens rea.
The deeply rooted presumption of mens rea generally requires the Government to prove the defendant‘s mens rea with respect to each element of a federal offense, unless Congress plainly provides otherwise. See Rehaif v. United States, 588 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (slip op, at 3); see also Flores-Figueroa v. United States, 556 U. S. 646, 652 (2009); W. Eskridge, Interpreting Law: A Primer on How To Read Statutes and the Constitution 350–351 (2016); A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 303-312 (2012). In addition, with respect to federal crimes requiring “willfulness,” the Court generally requires the Government to prove that the defendant was aware that his conduct was unlawful. See Bryan v. United States, 524 U. S. 184, 191–193 (1998); Cheek v. United States, 498 U. S. 192, 201-203 (1991).
To be sure, if a federal criminal statute does not contain a “willfulness” requirement and if a defendant is prosecuted for violating a legal prohibition or requirement that the defendant honestly was unaware of and reasonably may not have anticipated, unfairness can result because of a lack of fair notice. That scenario could arise with some malum prohibitum federal crimes, for example. But when that fair notice problem arises, one solution where appropriate could be to require proof that the defendant was aware that his conduct was unlawful. Alternatively, another solution could be to allow a mistake-of-law defense in certain cir-
In sum, I would not invite the inconsistency, unpredictability, and unfairness that would result from expanding the rule of lenity beyond its very limited place in the Court‘s case law. I would, however, continue to vigorously apply (and where appropriate, extend) mens rea requirements, which as Justice Robert Jackson remarked, are “as universal and persistent in mature systems of law as belief in freedom of the human will and a consequent ability and duty of the normal individual to choose between good and evil.” Id., at 250.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 20-5279
WILLIAM DALE WOODEN, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
[March 7, 2022]
JUSTICE BARRETT, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I join all but Part II-B of the Court‘s opinion. I agree with the Court‘s analysis of the ordinary meaning of the word “occasion” and its conclusion that Wooden‘s burglaries count only once under the
* * *
As an initial matter, the Court errs in asserting that the occasions clause was crafted to reject the result that the Eighth Circuit initially reached in Petty. (Recall that the Eighth Circuit changed its view on remand after the Solicitor General confessed error in this Court.) The Court‘s evidence for that proposition consists of nothing but a short analysis that Senator Byrd submitted for the Congressional Record in calendaring the proposed amendment. Ante, at
Petty‘s tenuous tie to the statute distinguishes this case from the many in which we have recognized that a judicial decision or line of decisions has provided the impetus for legislation. In some instances, enacted findings have explicitly connected the statute to a prior decision. See, e.g., Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U. S. 682, 694 (2014) (“Congress responded to [Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990)] by enacting” the
The Court needs the Petty backstory, though, to make its
Again, I will not belabor why this approach is flawed. See, e.g., Blanchard v. Bergeron, 489 U. S. 87, 98 (1989) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (“That the Court should refer to the citation of three District Court cases in a document issued by a single committee of a single house as the action of Congress displays the level of unreality that our unrestrained use of legislative history has attained“); A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 386 (2012) (“Even if the members of each house wish to do so, they cannot assign responsibility for making law—or the details of law—to one of their number, or to one of their committees“). But it is worth discussing the Court‘s jump from legislative history to litigation history because of what it might mean in later cases.
The Court elevates the Solicitor General‘s brief to the status of a governing test. Consider how that choice plays out in this case. The Government argues that Wooden‘s burglaries occurred on separate occasions because they were committed sequentially (unlike Petty‘s robberies, which the Government says were committed simultaneously). That argument fails for the reasons that the Court explains in Part II-A of its opinion, which I join: Such close-in-time crimes, even if sequential, happen on the same “occasion.” But rather than resting only on the statutory language, the Court also invokes the reasoning in the Petty brief. It says
“[n]othing about the Solicitor General‘s confession of error, or the action Congress took in its wake, suggests any concern for the exact ordering of Petty‘s actions. Each was based instead on another idea: A person who has robbed a restaurant, and done nothing else, is not a ‘habitual offender[]’ or ‘career criminal[].’ . . . It was that focus on ‘revolving door’ felons that the Solicitor General referenced in arguing that the courts in Petty had construed ACCA too broadly.” Ante, at 13-14 (quoting Addendum to Brief for Petitioner 27a and citing 134 Cong. Rec. 13782–13783 (1988)).
Thus, in the Court‘s view, the Government‘s argument fails not only because of the statutory text but also because the Solicitor General‘s 35-year-old brief, which the statute supposedly incorporates, rules it out. That is not how statutory interpretation is supposed to work.*
The Court‘s approach will likely have downstream effects because it invites both litigants and lower courts to mine the Solicitor General‘s brief for guidance on the scope of the occasions clause—as the parties did in this case. To be sure, the most important indicators of whether crimes occurred on a single “occasion“—proximity in time and location—will matter most. But on top of that, lower courts may place weight on the buzzwords that the Court highlights in the Solicitor General‘s brief: “repeat offenders,” “habitual offenders,” “recidivists,” “revolving door offenders,” and “three time loser[s].” Ante, at 11 (internal quotation marks omitted). And that could sow unnecessary confusion.
Take a case involving three drug sales that occurred at 8 o‘clock on three consecutive evenings at three different locations. Applying the ordinary meaning of the text seems straightforward enough: The three offenses are separate occasions because they occurred a day apart and at different locations, notwithstanding the similarity of the crimes. Yet factor in the details of the Solicitor General‘s brief, and the result is not so clear. Is a defendant who committed three crimes over the course of three days really a “revolving door offende[r]” or a true “recidivis[t]“? Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). Maybe not—those labels evoke a distinct inquiry. And though the labels may capture what Congress was getting at, the statute chooses a particular way of getting there: the text of the occasions clause. We should leave it at that.
* * *
The Court glosses this statute by leaning on weak evidence of Congress’ impetus for amending the statute, followed by still weaker evidence that Congress embraced the reasoning of a brief filed by the Solicitor General. I would impute to Congress only what can fairly be imputed to it: the words of the statute. Crimes within a spree like Wooden‘s do not count as separate ACCA predicates because of the statutory language, not because those who drafted the amendment had either Petty‘s case or the Solicitor General‘s prose in mind.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 20-5279
WILLIAM DALE WOODEN, PETITIONER v. UNITED STATES
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
[March 7, 2022]
JUSTICE GORSUCH, with whom JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR joins as to Parts II, III, and IV, concurring in the judgment.
Once more we confront the
I
What do we resolve? The Court rejects the Sixth Circuit‘s rule that crimes occurring sequentially always occur on different occasions. Sometimes, the Court holds, crimes committed one after another can take place on a single occasion. No one doubts that William Wooden had to break through
Beyond that clear holding, however, lies much uncertainty. Rather than simply observe that sequential crimes can occur on one occasion and return this case to the Court of Appeals for resolution, the Court ventures further. It directs lower courts faced with future Occasions Clause cases to employ a “multi-factored” balancing test in which “a range of circumstances may be relevant.” Ante, at 8.
The potentially relevant factors turn out to be many and disparate. The Court says that offenses committed close in time “often” but not always take place on a single occasion. Ibid. Offenses separated by “substantial gaps in time or significant intervening events” usually occur on separate occasions—though what counts as a “substantial” gap or “significant” event remains unexplained. Ibid. “Proximity of location” can be “important” too—but it is not necessarily dispositive. Ibid. Whether the defendant‘s crimes involve “similar or intertwined” conduct also “may“—or may not—make a difference. Ibid. And even this long list of factors probably is not exhaustive. Ante, at 8–9. Nor does the list come with any instructions on how to weigh the relative importance of so many factors or how to resolve cases when those factors point in different directions.
The Court‘s multi-factor balancing test may represent an earnest attempt to bring some shape to future litigation under the Occasions Clause. But it is still very much a judicial gloss on the statute‘s terms—and one that is unnecessary to resolve the case at hand. Multi-factor balancing tests of this sort, too, have supplied notoriously little guidance in many other contexts, and there is little reason to think one might fare any better here. In fact, many lower courts faced
Admittedly, a long list of factors may supply a clear answer in some cases. Who doubts that a single gunshot hitting two people involves two crimes on a single occasion—or that two murders separated by years and miles take place on separate occasions? The problem is that beyond easy cases like those lies a universe of hard ones, where a long list of non-exhaustive, only sometimes relevant, and often incommensurable factors promises to perpetuate confusion in the lower courts and conflicting results for those whose liberties hang in the balance.
Consider some examples. Imagine a defendant who sells drugs to the same undercover police officer twice at the same street corner one hour apart. Do the sales take place on the same occasion or different ones? Remember, “[p]roximity of location” and “similar or intertwined . . . conduct” suggest a single occasion. Ante, at 8. But “substantial gaps in time” often indicate two episodes. Ibid. With these factors pointing in different directions and no clear rule for resolving their conflicting guidance, who can be surprised when reasonable minds reach different conclusions?
Next, take the Court‘s barroom brawl hypothetical. Because it involves “a continuous stream of closely related criminal acts at one location,” the Court says the crimes
Imagine, too, an individual who commits a robbery or burglary then later assaults a pursuing police officer: Does the later assault happen on a separate “occasion” from the initial crime? The times, locations, and crimes differ, but they are related in certain respects too. Unsurprisingly, the courts of appeals have disagreed in cases like these. Compare United States v. Leeson, 453 F. 3d 631, 639–640 (CA4 2006) (yes), with United States v. Graves, 60 F. 3d 1183, 1184-1185, 1187 (CA6 1995) (no).
Now return to Mr. Wooden. The Court rightly says that crimes taking place sequentially can sometimes happen on a single occasion. Ante, at 5-6. But the Court does not stop there and remand this case to the Court of Appeals. After prescribing a long list of factors for use in future cases, it proceeds to declare that “every” factor points in the same direction in this case and dictates the conclusion that Mr. Wooden‘s crimes occurred on a single occasion. Ante, at 9. In particular, the Court stresses that his crimes involved storage units in the same building (location) and took place over the same night (timing). Ibid.
But even when it comes to Mr. Wooden, it‘s not entirely clear whether the Court‘s factors compel only one conclusion. When it comes to location, each storage unit had its own number and space, each burglary infringed on a different person‘s property, and Mr. Wooden had to break through a new wall to enter each one. Suppose this case involved not adjacent storage units but adjacent townhomes or adjacent stores in a mall. If Mr. Wooden had torn through the walls separating them, would we really say his crimes occurred at the same location?
The answer is no more certain when the question turns to timing. Nothing in the record before us speaks to how long Mr. Wooden lingered over his crimes—whether they spanned one hour or many. Meanwhile, the record does show that between each of his burglaries Mr. Wooden faced a choice between walking away or breaking through another wall into a new storage unit. In this way, each additional obstacle presented a kind of intervening event. As the Sixth Circuit put it, there was no reason why Mr. Wooden could not have “call[ed] it a night after the first burglary.” 945 F. 3d 498, 505 (2019). Every judge who confronted this case before us thought his crimes happened on different occasions. And it‘s not hard to see how different minds might come to different conclusions.
So what accounts for the Court‘s disposition in Mr. Wooden‘s favor? The Court insists that its array of factors point inexorably to the conclusion that his crimes occurred on a single occasion. But when it comes to location, one could view Mr. Wooden‘s crimes as having taken place in one location or several, and the Court chooses the more lenient option. When it comes to timing, one could view his crimes as transpiring in a single episode or as having many potential breaks in the action, and again the Court chooses the more forgiving course.
Respectfully, all this suggests to me that the key to this case does not lie as much in a multiplicity of factors as it does in the rule of lenity. Under that rule, any reasonable doubt about the application of a penal law must be resolved in favor of liberty. Because reasonable minds could differ (as they have differed) on the question whether Mr. Wooden‘s crimes took place on one occasion or many, the rule of lenity demands a judgment in his favor. The rule seems destined as well to play an important role in many other cases under the Occasions Clause—a setting where the statute at issue supplies little guidance, does not define its key term, and the word it does use (“occasions“) can lead
II
The “rule of lenity” is a new name for an old idea—the notion that “penal laws should be construed strictly.” The Adventure, 1 F. Cas. 202, 204 (No. 93) (CC Va. 1812) (Marshall, C. J.). The rule first appeared in English courts, justified in part on the assumption that when Parliament intended to inflict severe punishments it would do so clearly. 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 88 (1765) (Blackstone); 2 M. Hale, The History of the Pleas of the Crown 335 (1736); see also L. Hall, Strict or Liberal Construction of Penal Statutes, 48 Harv. L. Rev. 748, 749-751 (1935). In the hands of judges in this country, however, lenity came to serve distinctively American functions—a means for upholding the Constitution‘s commitments to due process and the separation of powers. Accordingly, lenity became a widely recognized rule of statutory construction in the Republic‘s early years.1
Consider lenity‘s relationship to due process. Under the
Early cases confirm the message. In United States v. Wiltberger, a sailor had killed an individual on a river in China. 5 Wheat. 76, 77 (1820). But the federal statute under which he was charged criminalized manslaughter only on the ““high seas.“” Id., at 93 (quoting Act of Apr. 30, 1790, § 12, 1 Stat. 115). Chief Justice Marshall acknowledged that other parts of the law might have suggested Congress intended to capture the sailor‘s conduct. 5 Wheat., at 105. But he insisted that “penal laws are to be construed strictly” because of “the tenderness of the law for the rights of individuals” and, more specifically, the right of every person to suffer only those punishments dictated by “the plain meaning of words.” Id., at 95-96. Where the text of a law mandates punishment for the defendant‘s conduct in terms an ordinary person can understand, a court‘s job is to apply it as written. Id., at 95. But where uncertainty exists, the law gives way to liberty.
United States v. Mann tells a similar story. 26 F. Cas. 1153 (No. 15,718) (CC NH 1812). There, Justice Story faced the question whether a federal statute authorized punishment against a shipowner. After concluding the statutory
Of course, most ordinary people today don‘t spend their leisure time reading statutes—and they probably didn‘t in Justice Marshall‘s and Justice Story‘s time either. But lenity‘s emphasis on fair notice isn‘t about indulging a fantasy. It is about protecting an indispensable part of the rule of law—the promise that, whether or not individuals happen to read the law, they can suffer penalties only for violating standing rules announced in advance. As the framers understood, “subjecting . . . men to punishment for things which, when they were done, were breaches of no law . . . ha[s] been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instrumen[t] of tyranny.” The Federalist No. 84, pp. 511-512 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton); see also McBoyle v. United States, 283 U. S. 25, 27 (1931) (“Although it is not likely that a criminal will carefully consider the text of the law . . . fair warning should be given to the world in language that the common world will understand“).
Closely related to its fair notice function is lenity‘s role in vindicating the separation of powers. Under our Constitution, “[a]ll” of the federal government‘s “legislative Powers” are vested in Congress.
Doubtless, lenity carries its costs. If judges cannot enlarge ambiguous penal laws to cover problems Congress failed to anticipate in clear terms, some cases will fall through the gaps and the legislature‘s cumbersome processes will have to be reengaged. But, as the framers appreciated, any other course risks rendering a self-governing people “slaves to their magistrates,” with their liberties dependent on “the private opinions of the judge.” 4 Blackstone 371 (1769). From the start, lenity has played an important role in realizing a distinctly American version of the rule of law—one that seeks to ensure people are never punished for violating just-so rules concocted after the fact, or rules with no more claim to democratic provenance than a judge‘s surmise about legislative intentions.
III
It may be understandable why the Court declines to discuss lenity today. Certain controversies and misunderstandings about the rule have crept into our law in recent years. I would take this opportunity to answer them.
Begin with the most basic of these controversies—the degree of ambiguity required to trigger the rule of lenity. Some have suggested that courts should consult the rule of
This “grievous” business does not derive from any well-considered theory about lenity or the mainstream of this Court‘s opinions. Since the founding, lenity has sought to ensure that the government may not inflict punishments on individuals without fair notice and the assent of the people‘s representatives. See supra, at 6–9. A rule that allowed judges to send people to prison based on intuitions about “merely” ambiguous laws would hardly serve those ends. Tellingly, this Court‘s early cases did not require a “grievous” ambiguity before applying the rule of lenity. Instead, they followed other courts in holding that, “[i]n the construction of a penal statute, it is well settled . . . that all reasonable doubts concerning its meaning ought to operate in favor of [the defendant].” Harrison v. Vose, 9 How. 372, 378 (1850) (emphasis added).2 Nineteenth century treatises seeking to record the rule put the point this way: “[I]f
So where did the talk about “grievous” ambiguities begin? The problem may trace to Huddleston v. United States, 415 U. S. 814 (1974). Id., at 831. That decision came during a “bygone era” characterized by a more freewheeling approach to statutory construction. Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media, 588 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (slip op., at 8) (internal quotation marks omitted). Nor did the decision pause to consider, let alone overrule, any of this Court‘s preexisting cases explaining lenity‘s original and historic scope. Indeed, in the years that followed Huddleston, this
A second and related misunderstanding has crept into our law. Sometimes, Members of this Court have suggested that we possess the authority to punish individuals under ambiguous laws in light of our own perceptions about some piece of legislative history or the statute‘s purpose. See, e.g., Moskal v. United States, 498 U. S. 103, 109–111 (1990); United States v. R. L. C., 503 U. S. 291, 305 (1992) (plurality opinion). Today‘s decision seemingly nods in the same direction. In a sentence in Part II-A, the Court says that statutory purpose is one factor a judge may “kee[p] an eye on” when deciding whether to enhance an individual‘s sentence under the Occasions Clause. Ante, at 8-9. The Court then proceeds to discuss the Clause‘s legislative history at length in Part II-B. It may be that the Court today intends
The right path is the more straightforward one. Where the traditional tools of statutory interpretation yield no clear answer, the judge‘s next step isn‘t to legislative history or the law‘s unexpressed purposes. The next step is to lenity. As Justice Story explained, because “penal statutes are construed strictly . . . forfeitures are not to be inflicted by straining the words so as to reach some conjectural policy.” United States v. Open Boat, 27 F. Cas. 354, 357 (No. 15,968) (CC Me. 1829). “[I]f [cases] are not provided for in the text of the act, courts of justice do not adventure on the usurpation of legislative authority.” Ibid. Or as Chief Justice Marshall put it, “[t]o determine that a case is within the intention of a statute, its language must authorise us to say so.” Wiltberger, 5 Wheat., at 96. Any other approach would be “unsafe” and “dangerous“—risking the possibility that judges rather than legislators will control the power to define crimes and their punishments. Ibid.; see also Hughey v. United States, 495 U. S. 411, 422 (1990) (“[L]ongstanding principles of lenity . . . preclude our resolution of the ambiguity . . . on the basis of general declarations of policy in the statute and legislative history“); R. L. C., 503 U. S., at 307–311 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); Bell v. United States, 349 U. S. 81, 83 (1955).
At least one more misconception has arisen in recent years. In debating the merits of the rule of lenity, some have treated the rule as an island unto itself—a curiosity
IV
The rule of lenity has a critical role to play in cases under