Flores-Figueroa v. United States

556 U.S. 646

129 S.Ct. 1886

173 L.Ed.2d 853

77 USLW 4377

Ignacio Carlos FLORES–FIGUEROA, Petitioner,

v.UNITED STATES.

No. 08–108.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued Feb. 25, 2009.

Decided May 4, 2009.

Syllabus^*

A federal statute forbidding “[a]ggravated identity theft” imposes a mandatory consecutive 2–year prison term on an individual convicted of certain predicate crimes if, during (or in relation to) the commission of those other crimes, the offender “ knowingly ... uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person.” 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1) (emphasis added). After petitioner Flores–Figueroa, a Mexican citizen, gave his employer counterfeit Social Security and alien registration cards containing his name but other people's identification numbers, he was arrested and charged with two immigration offenses and aggravated identity theft. Flores moved for acquittal on the latter charge, claiming that the Government could not prove that he knew that the documents' numbers were assigned to other people. The District Court agreed with the Government that the word “knowingly” in § 1028A(a)(1) does not modify the statute's last three words, “of another person,” and, after trial, found Flores guilty on all counts. The Eighth Circuit affirmed.

Held: Section § 1028(a)(1) requires the Government to show that the defendant knew that the means of identification at issue belonged to another person. As a matter of ordinary English grammar, “knowingly” is naturally read as applying to all the subsequently listed elements of the crime. Where a transitive verb has an object, listeners in most contexts assume that an adverb (such as “knowingly”) that modifies the verb tells the listener how the subject performed the entire action, including the object. The Government does not provide a single example of a sentence that, when used in typical fashion, would lead the hearer to a contrary understanding. And courts ordinarily interpret criminal statutes consistently with the ordinary English usage. See, e.g.,Liparota v. United States, 471 U.S. 419, 105 S.Ct. 2084, 85 L.Ed.2d 434. The Government argues that this position is incorrect because it would either require the same language to be interpreted differently in a neighboring provision or would render the language in that provision superfluous. This argument fails for two reasons. Finally, the Government's arguments based on the statute's purpose and on the practical problems of enforcing it are not sufficient to overcome the ordinary meaning, in English or through ordinary interpretive practice, of Congress' words. Pp. 1890 – 1894.

274 Fed.Appx. 501, reversed and remanded.

BREYER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C.J., and STEVENS, KENNEDY, SOUTER, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined. SCALIA, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which THOMAS, J., joined. ALITO, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

Kevin K. Russell, Bethesda, MD, for Petitioner.

Toby J. Heytens, Washington, DC, for Respondent.

Pamela S. Karlan, Jeffrey L. Fisher, Stanford, CA, Gary K. Koos, Bettendorf, IA, Kevin K. Russell, Amy Howe, Howe & Russell, P.C., Bethesda, MD, Thomas C. Goldstein, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld LLP, Washington, DC, for Petitioner.

Edwin S. Kneedler, Acting Solicitor General, Rita M. Glavin, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Michael R. Dreeben, Deputy Solicitor General, Toby J. Heytens, Assistant to the Solicitor General, William C. Brown, Department of Justice, Washington, DC, for U.S.

Justice BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court.

A federal criminal statute forbidding “[a]ggravated identity theft” imposes a mandatory consecutive 2–year prison term upon individuals convicted of certain other crimes if, during (or in relation to) the commission of those other crimes, the offender “ knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person.” 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1) (emphasis added). The question is whether the statute requires the Government to show that the defendant knew that the “means of identification” he or she unlawfully transferred, possessed, or used, in fact, belonged to “another person.” We conclude that it does.

I

A

The statutory provision in question references a set of predicate crimes, including, for example, theft of government property, fraud, or engaging in various unlawful activities related to passports, visas, and immigration. § 1028A(c). It then provides that if any person who commits any of those other crimes (in doing so) “knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person,” the judge must add two years' imprisonment to the offender's underlying sentence. § 1028A(a)(1). All parties agree that the provision applies only where the offender knows that he is transferring, possessing, or using something. And the Government reluctantly concedes that the offender likely must know that he is transferring, possessing, or using that something without lawful authority. But they do not agree whether the provision requires that a defendant also know that the something he has unlawfully transferred is, for example, a real ID belonging to another person rather than, say, a fake ID ( i.e., a group of numbers that does not correspond to any real Social Security number).

Petitioner Ignacio Flores–Figueroa argues that the statute requires that the Government prove that he knew that the “means of identification” belonged to someone else, i.e., was “a means of identification of another person.” The Government argues that the statute does not impose this particular knowledge requirement. The Government concedes that the statute uses the word “knowingly,” but that word, the Government claims, does not modify the statute's last phrase (“a means of identification of another person”) or, at the least, it does not modify the last three words of that phrase (“of another person”).

B

The facts of this case illustrate the legal problem. Ignacio Flores–Figueroa is a citizen of Mexico. In 2000, to secure employment, Flores gave his employer a false name, birth date, and Social Security number, along with a counterfeit alien registration card. The Social Security number and the number on the alien registration card were not those of a real person. In 2006, Flores presented his employer with new counterfeit Social Security and alien registration cards; these cards (unlike Flores' old alien registration card) used his real name. But this time the numbers on both cards were in fact numbers assigned to other people.

Flores' employer reported his request to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Customs discovered that the numbers on Flores' new documents belonged to other people. The United States then charged Flores with two predicate crimes, namely, entering the United States without inspection, 8 U.S.C. § 1325(a), and misusing immigration documents, 18 U.S.C. § 1546(a). And it charged him with aggravated identity theft, 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1), the crime at issue here.

Flores moved for a judgment of acquittal on the “aggravated identity theft” counts. He claimed that the Government could not prove that he knew that the numbers on the counterfeit documents were numbers assigned to other people. The Government replied that it need not prove that knowledge, and the District Court accepted the Government's argument. After a bench trial, the court found Flores guilty of the predicate crimes and aggravated identity theft. The Court of Appeals upheld the District Court's determination. 274 Fed.Appx. 501 (C.A.8 2008)(per curiam). And we granted certiorari to consider the “knowledge” issue—a matter about which the Circuits have disagreed. Compare United States v. Godin, 534 F.3d 51 (C.A.1 2008) (knowledge requirement applies to “of another person”); United States v. Miranda–Lopez, 532 F.3d 1034 (C.A.9 2008) (same); United States v. Villanueva–Sotelo, 515 F.3d 1234 (C.A.D.C.2008) (same), with United States v. Mendoza–Gonzalez, 520 F.3d 912 (C.A.8 2008) (knowledge requirement does not apply to “of another person”); United States v. Hurtado, 508 F.3d 603 (C.A.11 2007)(per curiam) (same); United States v. Montejo, 442 F.3d 213 (C.A.4 2006) (same).

II

There are strong textual reasons for rejecting the Government's position. As a matter of ordinary English grammar, it seems natural to read the statute's word “knowingly” as applying to all the subsequently listed elements of the crime. The Government cannot easily claim that the word “knowingly” applies only to the statutes first four words, or even its first seven. It makes little sense to read the provision's language as heavily penalizing a person who “transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority” a something, but does not know, at the very least, that the “something” (perhaps inside a box) is a “means of identification.” Would we apply a statute that makes it unlawful “ knowingly to possess drugs” to a person who steals a passenger's bag without knowing that the bag has drugs inside?

The Government claims more forcefully that the word “knowingly” applies to all but the statute's last three words, i.e., “of another person.” The statute, the Government says, does not require a prosecutor to show that the defendant knows that the means of identification the defendant has unlawfully used in fact belongs to another person. But how are we to square this reading with the statute's language?

In ordinary English, where a transitive verb has an object, listeners in most contexts assume that an adverb (such as knowingly) that modifies the transitive verb tells the listener how the subject performed the entire action, including the object as set forth in the sentence. Thus, if a bank official says, “Smith knowingly transferred the funds to his brother's account,” we would normally understand the bank official's...