we'll hear argument first this morning in case fourteen eighty three fifty eight la carte versus united states was asked mr chief justice and may it please the court this case concerns the ten year mandatory minimum prison sentence that section twenty two fifty two b two sometimes requires federal judges to impose the statutory language in dispute reserves the severe punishment for defended with a prior state conviction for an offense relating to any kind of sexual abuse involving a minor or ward because petitioners prior offenses did not involve a minor award the a title out eighteen which covers sexual abuse offenses then it would trigger the mandatory penalty but congress in this statute since the time it was first inactive in one thousand nine hundred ninety eight has never sought to create s y or parity between the federal predicates and the state predicates this may be most clear now in subsection twenty two fifty two b one where you can see that a prior federal conviction for sex trafficking of anyone which is a violation of section section fifty nine one the corresponding state analog is textually limited to sex trafficking of children so this decision to treat prior state federal predicates differently at that time there were still no state law predicates at all in one nine hundred ninety six when the language was first introduced and it was then introduced in section subsection b one which applies to the distribution and receipt offenses  even then the penalty for simple possession of child pornography was the only federal predicate so someone in mr lockhart's position at that time would not have faced the mandatory minimum penalty even if people who committed the distribution offenses were or even it even if you had a conviction for under chapter one zero nine et so and then in one nine eight when this language in dispute was then added at the government's urging to subsection b to even at that time congress clearly wasn't aiming for parity because then they added a new federal predicate chapter one seventeen offenses which are violations of the mann act transportation for illegal sexual activity but at that time it didn't add any state log state offense analog for that offense this is continued up to the present day so in two thousand and three there were amendments to add the obscenity offenses to federal obscenity offenses in chapter seventy one to the list of federal predicates but no corresponding state crime for the much more serious crime of actually using minors or children to produce this material the language in twenty two fifty one as amended in two thousand and six  different it does seem to track to qualify the predicates to include state law abuse offenses that involve adults as well as children but that's because there's an important textual difference between section twenty two fifty one and the statute we're talking about so if you go back to section twenty two fifty two b two you'll see in fortan textural point here which is the word for this may be easier to follow if you actually look at the statute if you don't have it open in the in the statutory appendix to the blue griffith pages you'll see that the list is written as aggravated sexual abuse sexual abuse abusive sexual caught i'm sorry or abusive sexual conduct involving a minor award or a bunch of other offenses the or before abusive sexual conduct would not be there on the government's reading that is if abusive sexual conduct involving a involving a minor award or and it would continue well there's another possible explanation for that because the last item in the list itself involves a great many in itself involves a list so the second work could be a substitute for a semi colon but let me ask you another question about the language that you just read as i understand your argument this provision would apply to sexual abuse involving  a minor and also abuse of sexual conduct involving a minor is there any difference between those two things no you're wrong we'll be congress put them both in well because i think that the first point here is it must be for the same reason that used aggravated sexual abuse at the beginning of the list which which i think both sides agree does no independent work it's already covered well there's something next there's something that jumps out and it's a strange less aggravated sexual abuse sexual abuse sexual abuse would include aggravated sexual abuse so that seems to be the reference to aggravated sexual abuse seems to be redundant and abusive sexual conduct understood in ordinary in the terms of ordinary language does seem to duplicate sexual abuse but there's an exit and explanation that jumps out and that is that this promise this precise terminology appears in sections twenty two forty one twenty two forty two and twenty two forty three and in those provisions the all those terms are defined so that they mean something different so it seems to jump out at the reader that that's what congress was doing in this list and why is what is wrong with that well first if you go back to the time this this language we're talking about was first added in  that congress not only knew how to how to how to do what your honor is suggesting that is to be tracking to federal predicates exactly because in a different provision the provision that became twenty two forty one c it did exactly that it just it describes state offenses whose conduct would constitute a federal crime if committed within federal jurisdiction so they didn't do that here and they didn't do it again when they added the particular language in hundred eight to be two again i'm sorry i don't follow that i think yes as i see it they did and as justice alito said track pretty much exactly twenty two forty one forty two or forty three in do eloping the eight the other provision was twenty four twenty six b so it knew it knew how to do it and didn't do it and has never done what could have done it more clearly that's certainly the answer to this whole case they could have handled this issue a lot more clearly but that is that the idea that they were picking up the definitions in the federal provisions is one explanation for this rather strange this list the other makes the list terribly redundant and i haven't heard your explanation as to why they would do that why include both sexual abuse and aggravated sexual abuse why include sexual abuse and abuse of sexual conduct your response is your honor first and this to the chief justice his question is well this list does not track the federal predicates as precisely i think as some have suggested the federal list of predicates has for crimes aggravated sexual abuse sexual abuse sexual abuse of a minor or ward and abusive sexual contact if congress had meant to track those they surely would have used the same four prong list with i think the government reads the modifying clause out of this statute in terms of doing any operative work at all but but let me respond the i'm not sure how your answer was responsive to justice redundancy question it was a bit that's the second part of the answer  the redundancy here was meant to go very broadly to pick up not the federal predicate but any terms or crimes that the states might create so that we cited this in the yellow brief in reply you'll see that the states call sexual abuse of a riot a of different things including aggravated sexual abuse of a minor sexual abuse of a minor abuse of sexual and sexual misconduct so congress is using these redundant terms as it sometimes does to emphasize inclusiveness whatever the label is congress wanted to protect children by picking those tough but it limited it limited the reach of the terms by stating a bright line floor and that floor  was children this statute after all its principal purpose as its title as the title of chapter one ten suggests is about protecting against sexual exploitation and other abuse of but it's possible also to think of the is as the aggravated sexual abuse is the worst offense the sexual abuse is a medium offense and the abuse of sexual conduct is actually a somewhat more minor offense and other words might include things that are not sexual abuse themselves let's say indecent exposure or something like that and if you understand the provisions in that way as sort of going from the top to the bottom and meant to pick up everything then it would seem that the involving a minor or ward really ought to refer to all of them right that there's no reason why the involving a minor or ward woodruff would refer only to the most minor offenses as the others well you know i think i think you're on a mix a good point we have not been able maybe i said right well what do you think would be what do you think would follow from that understanding of this list well your honor we have tried to figure out what what in the world the difference is between sexual abuse and abuse of sexual conduct when you give these terms their ordinary meaning there is no meaningful difference sexual abuse ordinarily defined is just a misuse first even with that assumption you have this prefatory language to the list here relating to which this court has described as defined as disk as interpreted to be very broad it only means to stand in some relation when i think what i think you would say is that if it's in descending order like that you don't have to make the third one which is already less than the second which is less than the first you have to make the third one teeny teeny teeny third one by tagging on children only to the third and not to the other two it seems to me much more regular  conceded that there is no difference between the last two that it's not descending i mean it's justice kagan who's suggested that abusive sexual conduct could mean exposure for example indecent exposure which would probably not fit the second second term haven't you conceded th were the same yes we have but we don't view it you do that for we don't we don't view it as we don't view it as a concession we have allowed for the possibility as i said as justice kagan i think is trying to do of trying to come up with some fine distinction in meaning between the last two terms but whether there is or isn't a little bit of daylight between those terms it's all overcome by the terms relating to anything relating to one is going to relate to the other and pity the poor district judge who would have to decide in cases around the country does this offense relate to sexual abuse in which case on the government's reading it doesn't matter whether a minor award was involved or doesn't relate to this other category of abuse of sexual conduct which as far as like us to be clear it's abusive sexual contact right not in our list that's the language from federal predicates that accept a crime in twenty to forty four is abuse of sexual contact us our list is abusive sexual conduct as far as we can tell no one has ever explained what in the world the difference well we might be when did they write are forty one forty two forty three now were two hundred forty one forty two forty three law or written before the relevant parts of your section were written they were federal predi prior to ok if that so and i don't know if this helps you heard you but it seems to me that there is a ready made right there for a draft or explanation of why he uses these words  because we first looked at forty one and that's aggravated and then we look to forty two and that sexual abuse that aggravated and conduct is just the same as contact but the drafter is thinking maybe we should go a little bit bigger now the difficulty is in each of the sections i've mentioned there is a special related section for children so the difference between the two for adults is the nature of the force requiring a person to perform a sexual act where you threaten violence etc that's one right and then the next section abuse you can see some other kind of threat then we get to the way it deals with children and it deals with children under the twelve under twelve that's one and it deals well to sixteen that's the next and then we have a section called contact and that has to do with sex acts basically that really weren't sex acts but for a certain kind of conduct which is defined right so i read this i say hey that's what they picked up they just a drafter just picked it up and changed a little bit but that's what he had in mind then the question is your question and in your favor i think is the fact that each of these earlier sections does have a special section dealing with children under the same number don't tell me i'm right if i'm not right but that's what i suddenly saw when justice alito asked this question just tell me your reaction well you know i'm going to tell him right i wouldn't do that  the court of appeals that have addressed this precise question just just so it's clear none of them they've all rejected the idea that i think that starts the premise here which is that congress meant to i meant for courts to interpret these terms by reference to the federal predicates in fact that's the government's position here as well so the party's on common ground in saying that these weren't meant to track the federal predicates and as i pointed out earlier congress not only knew how to do it when they wanted to they did it in these two pieces of legislation in ninety six and ninety eight now it's true that these terms existed in the federal predicates before they were added to this section but they also exist all around the country in the fifty states so congress wasn't wasn't trying to track them it could have just said any state offense that would be a violation of federal law if if it if in federal jurisdiction it didn't do that it was recognizing that states do all kinds of things and it's using these terms to say anything relating to it doesn't have to even be sexual abuse it just has to relate to sexual abuse but because that could pick up misdemeanor sex offenses around the country committed only against an adult public lewdness would be an example that crime we cited one statute in a brief that's the statutory maximum is thirty days in jail but if that were picked up suddenly someone who's in federal court with their first offense tried the first federal offense of possessing child pornography is suddenly going to have their sentence go but you're argument is that it is just a coincidence that congress came up with this list of three terms that are redundant and that just so happen to be almost exactly the same three terms in the same order that appear in the federal provisions no you know i don't i don't mean to say that it's not a coincidence congress would naturally use terms that it is familiar that are in the in the federal federal chapter but that's very different they didn't use the same terms that's right third term is different but they used even if you have was an accident that the third term was differe no i think the court presumes that when congress uses a different term it acts deliberate and i think when they use sexual abuse and sexually abusive conduct they were not that they had in mind the federal provisions but they didn't want those terms in this provision to mean the same thing as they mean in the federal provision even though according to you there is no generally accepted understanding of the difference between sexual abuse and abuse of sexual conduct that's right that's right that they did they didn't so chapter one ten the chapter that contains the statute has its own definitional section there is no definition of any of these terms the only potentially pertinent term that's defined is the term minor which is defined differently or in this chapter then it's defined where you have sexual abuses to find and abusive sexual contact is so long as it involves a minor that's the focus congress was trying to protect children and to punish and deter those who would harm them there is nothing in the history or the understanding of these provisions at the time of an act to suggest that they were also focused on sexual abuse states sexual abuse crimes against adults now that's a serious crime no one disputes that but it wasn't the focus of this legislation but why would they be focused on federal sexual abuse involving adults but not state sexual abuse involving adults because of the one thousand nine hundred six congress was focused on a very specific problem that they had done by and that's that the link the connection between child pornography and other sex offenses against children so that was their focus and given that focus and given that the other state law predicates in this statute are also limited to two crimes against children they naturally limited these offenses as well to children i know but that the federal predicate section one hundred nine i believe it is does apply to adults as well so why would they be focused on adults with respect to federal offenses but not with respect to state offenses because i think most important congress controls the federal of federal crimes it creates them it knows what they are there are a finite set and it knows that those predicates are not going to change without congressional action once the national legislature has to consider fifty penal codes around the country which can change at any time and can cover things that may relate to sexual abuse or abuse of sexual conduct congress recently may have decided that it didn't want to sweep that broadly so it again created this flow involving a minor award was the key phrase and now reading is the only one proposed that gives it some operative work to do i'd like to reserve the balance of my time proposal thank you thank you coun mr chief justice and may it please the court this case involves two competing canons of statutory interpretation and there are four basic reasons why we think the government's interpretation is correct first to petitioners interpretation creat unexplained redundancy where the court would have to conclude that congress created a list of three things two of which are the same second our interpretation is consistent with the only possible reading of section  category of sexual abuse but there's a couple of explanations for why congress may have done that the first is that when they added these state law predicates to the section twenty two fifty two b one for the first time in  there already were federal predicates on the list that included aggravated sexual abuse sexual abuse and sexual abuse of a minor or ward so even though it may be true that congress could have covered everything it wanted to cover in the state law crimes by just saying sexual abuse it would have opened itself up to arguments if it had just said all of those federal crimes and then any state law relating to sexual abuse that those other part types of sexual abuse under state law were not covered especially with respect to the third katty category of sexual abuse or abuse of sexual conduct involving i'm minor or ward congress made clear when it included that third category that it was picking up state law offenses where a person is deemed incapable of consenting to sexual contact or sexual conduct because of their status as either a minor or a ward so our interpretation can be explained there is redundancy and we're not asking for just an straight invocation of the candidate interpretations contain surplusage but it's a reason why it doesn't make sense to apply the series qualifier canon here because it resists resists the argument that what congress was doing was picking up basically the definitions of the federal offenses that or worded almost identically if that's what they are doing then it's understandable what is meant by all three terms if that's not what they were doing it's a strange coincidence and not only is there redundancy but there's ambiguity about what is meant by sexual abuse as opposed to abusive sexual conduct and why they had to put in aggravated sexual abuse in addition to sexual abuse justice alito we don't think that congress was trying to pick up the exact definitions of the three federal statutes and we think that's most clear as petitioner pointed out by the fact that there are other provisions in this chapter where congress used different language when it wanted to do so the most clear example is the recidivists provision for the sexual abuse the faster they could have done it more clearly of course the statute is poorly drafted you know we give them a d for their drafting of this statute but what is the difference between sexual abuse and abuse of sexual conduct putting aside the definitions of those those terms are so are somewhat terms in chapter one on line i don't think there's any difference between those two terms and  petitioner agrees which is why i put that why did they do that i think that because of some catchy phrases the camp of their mind you know i think the last category abusive sexual conduct involving a minor award was meant to indicate make clear that congress was picking up state offenses where a person is deemed incapable of giving consent because they are a minor or a ward they are deemed incapable by the law even though can under it a generic definition of sexual abuse that may  what would you say why would you and ward if if that was the reason for it why would you just say of a minor well congress added ward in a way that's what i'm asking right well we think the most to achieve what would you say they were achieving  it would have sufficed to say murder no i don't think so a minor award is not just a person who's a minor or a foster child or a person who's been placed under a guardianship because of mental incompetence or something like that those people are all wards but as we've explained in our brief a word also very clearly includes a prisoner in congress would have known that in the federal sexual abuse of award provision refers basically it says that's not somebody who could not who could not give consent under it you're saying the reason for it was they wanted to pick up people who could not consent to that thing but to do that only had to say was minor no i know i think that a award is also basically deemed incapable of giving consent prisoners are deemed incapable of giving consent the law has the same sort of operation yes it deems the conduct abusive even if it's consensual sex the section twenty two forty three would be deemed abusive sexual contact if we want to work toward could also be a forty year old person who's incompetent correct a word could certainly be an adult and i think this is a key point that petitioner has never really answered is that petitioner is trying to say that there's this clear pattern that congress had when it was creating the these lists and that the federal crimes can involve both adults and minors but it was always limiting the state law crimes to crimes against children and it just isn't the case and even under his interpretation because words are included there's at least some adult sexual abuse crimes against adults that are being swept up even if it applies to all three categories and also in section twenty two fifty  one the enhancement for child pornography production offenses the only way that you could read that provision is to include sexual abuse offenses against adults and so it's not the case that there's this very clear pattern where congress was only including child victim counterparts to all of the federal offenses that it was putting on the list to write one petition in says that it was the department of justice  took that position in the brief anytime we were confronted with actually interpret in the statute as a legal matter we have contended that involving a minor or word applies only to the last category we're going to get that idea from the reader to get th look congress in the sexual abuse provision or the recidivist provision for for receipt and distribution offenses and twenty two fifty two b one you have all the state law crimes that you didn't include on the disc on the list of predi offenses for twenty to fifty to be to the possession offenses and we think you should line them up in summarizing that argument the drafter of the letter referred to them as child molestation crimes or child abuse crimes it was an it was an under inclusive inaccurate sure it wasn't an accurate they do involve child molestation crimes but it was just a useful way of summarizing what was there and what would have been most assuredly a child and intelligent person could think that that's what this what i worry about is the rule of levity you have these dual dueling can you have a rule that when the government send somebody to jail for ten years it has to turn sharp corners it has to dot every and cross every t it has to be clear and you know we've been discussing this dueling canons and so forth my goodness i have no i have no assurance what the right answer is but i know that somebody could read this and think that it means what the petitioner says it needs and if that's the case it seems to me the rule of beauty comes into play that's that's what concerns me most about this case not the dueling candidates justice scalia i think if you read the text of the statute once you may think i don't know what this means it could go either way but if you just read the rest of the list of things that congress included and take a look at it we think there's four things that jump out that make clear that involving a minor award only as modifying the last category the first is the redundancy problem that petitioners interpretation create can i ask about your basic theory as to that which if i understand it says the reason why we shouldn't worry about the redundancy you create because congress just wanted to make absolutely clear that the sexual abuse was also sexual abuse involving somebody who couldn't consent that's basically your theory and there was a very easy way to do that and it would have completely made this i mean made this one hundred percent clear congress would just a said aggravated sexual abuse sexual abuse or sexual abuse involving a minor award and just by using the exact same language it would have been clear but the distinction much between sexual abuse and sexual abuse involving a minor award but congress doesn't do that right congress changes the language of the third noun and that's what creates the puzzlement and and so it seems to me that you  theory doesn't really cohere with the fact that this third term of the nobody can say exactly what it means that is that it's different the third term is linguistically dissimilar from the second one it is but but under a generic interpretation of sexual abuse any generic definition that a court has come up with i think one that is a typical one is sexual conduct that uses or misuses or injures a victim so as to cause harm or damage they all include sexual conduct and so regardless of whether sexual conduct is you know under the federal law sexual conduct could be both a sexual act or a sexual contact anything that's defined within the federal provision but  the term sexual abuse was already broad enough to cover abuse of sexual conduct i can't say that i know why congress didn't say sexual abuse of a minor award as opposed to abuse of sexual conduct involving a minor or word but i think the part of it to focus on is the fact that they use the term involving a minor award it's the same category or category of people that they are trying to pick up that's reflected in the probations on sexual well why not  just say social conduct with a minor or award because now you have to deal with the adjective abusive so how does that get you to consent i think congress could have done this without saying abusive but you know the federal sexual abuse statute of them minor award is called sexual abuse of a minor a word they they also include the word abusive i think it's just the the ambiguity really is that abuse could mean different things depending on who the victim is something could be abusive because it's done to or in front of a child but not an adult  i think for that proposition and so you said no there are four things here that show that this isn't ambiguous you shouldn't end up that way and one was a redundancy but i'm not sure what it was and then you didn't get to the other three which i'd like to hear ok i apologize for that i jumped in no paul no it wasn't the second reason why we think the petitioners interpretation doesn't make sense is because in the penalty provision for production offenses section twenty two fifty one petitioner agrees that the only way you can read that penalty provision is to include state sexual abuse offenses against adults because congress worded it slightly differently they included all the same crimes but the way that provision is reads it says state laws relating to aggravated sexual abuse sexual abuse abusive sexual contact involving a minor or ward or sex trafficking of children offenses in section twenty two fifty one and there's two possible interpretations of the same three crimes in the next provision and so the court would have a choice between saying that those the state sexual abuse offenses have different scopes in the two and the three categories that it created for states actually and the fourth which is not apparent if you read the word right it's not exactly contact is not conduct i think that's that is debatable i mean there is that the con contacted conduct are different words it's not that they're different words but i think even petitioner points out that in the abuse of sexual contact provision sexual contact as they start out by calling it sexual conduct and circumstances where it didn't amount to a sexual act it's a no not you're not suggesting this is just a scrivener's error are you that it was meant to be contact i think they both do the same job so i don't i don't know why it was changed but i don't think committed against children if the defendant was convicted under a generally applicable sexual abuse statute ok so you'll say or is not in the is in this one and it's not in the other one for a reason he'll say there's a perfectly reading's both ways he'll say that i can't remember the third but the fourth he's going to say yes under inclusive vs over inclusive yours as it would be somewhat on during clue super the reason you say and you take your reading it'll be over inclusive for the reason he says so if  this is the only place if we are absolutely adequate boys which i can't say we are now but i think it through if we are absolutely attacked reporters before turning to the rule of lenity i would like your comment on my temptation to say at least here the legislative history helps and indeed knew you were going to say ok indeed no it isn't just a letter from the justice department it is that the report you know the way these are actually written is that a general idea is given to a person whose job it is to draft and that draft or tries to put in words the general intention that's been described and the report is used to describe what the general intention was i'm not saying one hundred percent but very often with technical statutes that's how it works so i read that report and what do i discover that a repeat offender with a prior conviction into or under any state child abuse law or law relating to the production receipt or distribution of child pornography and it is only two years later after they passed that the justice department writes its letter noting that the provision they just passed involved individuals with prior convictions for child abuse and recommending an enhanced penalty as well if they had a prior conviction for sexual abuse of a minor ok so i read that and said short but clear and that's what the drafter would have been looking at when the first one anyway working with the staff of the committee when trying to translate general intentions of senators and representatives into actual language and i think it's not contrary to pop to say that senators and representatives do hire a staff to do such things and do not sit there with pen and pencil thinking where does the or go ok so what is what is the justice department response to that i think there are two things the first is the response i gave before which is just that this may have been a useful shorthand way to describe the conduct that congress would have been most concerned about for the person writing the report and for the department of justice trying to convince congress to add the state law crimes to the child pornography possession recidivist unhandsome and and i think the other response is just that even if you think the letter is against us you look at what congress actually did and they created a provision that basically parallels the three federal offenses they included many federal offenses that can involve adult victims and then eight years later when they added state law predicates to section twenty two fifty one they board right we think that's where the most important thing here is to look at the text and that's a really quite broad so i don't know what the four thousand people over there are doing if they're not interested by their principals to write words on paper  kens could you talk about the rule of lenity does the rule of lenity apply with the same force when the question is the substantive definition of a crime as distinct from the penalty that attached way but i mean if we talk about any distinction there is not been a distinction in the court's cases there have been a few times where criminal defendants have tried to say that there should be a supercharged rule of one of the in a case that's talking about mandatory minimums or or maximums or a consecutive sentence and the court has resisted that and i think this would be not it not a good case for the court to go down that path because the guidelines range for this particular criminal defendant was seventy eight to ninety seven months his minimum was one hundred twenty it's not actually a huge difference and under under current law the statutory maximum would have been the same regardless of whether this enhanced applied just as briar has helpfully walked me through all of my points so if the court has no further questions can i go back to the to the language you know it's confusing language and i showed it to all my clerks and basically said how would you read it and two came out on one side and two came out on the other side but but i'm sort of left with this feeling that we're not with and this situation where there are dueling canons we actually might be in a situation where one can and trumps the other i mean you have this last antecedent rule and that's an important rule but it gives way when a certain when when there's a certain quality to all the antecedents when they're all parallel and when the last modifier equally sensibly refers to them all right and that that's a situation so that series quantifier rule is in some sense a rule about when the last antecedent rule doesn't apply so i guess i would ask you to comment on that there i have a couple of different responses the first one is that the context is the most important thing and it's not the case that the court hasn't applied the last antecedent role in cases where the statute involves a list of parallel terms i think the after you see versus mendell brothers is the best example of that there's a list of a purchaser hans and you factor bailey correspondent or agent or any other person who's engaged in dealing commercially and for products or fur and the court said it didn't make sense to only apply this to a purchaser who and that the book even says that the series qualifier principle more so than others is highly dependent on context and can be overcome if something doesn't feel right about the way that the statute reads when you apply it and we think the clearest indication here that it doesn't make sense for the qualifier to apply to all three of the categories is that it literally renders categories b and c the same point out just one other thing just as briar you mentioned during the petitioner's argument that you noticed that each of the federal predicates twenty two forty one twenty two forty two twenty two forty three have a provision that applies to minors words section twenty two forty two does not but it's followed by what could be taken as they just gave it a different number two on the right twenty two forty three does in fact you know with minor twenty two forty three is the sexual abuse of a minor or word provision twenty two forty one aggravated sexual abuse has a special subsection dealing with very young children on section twenty two forty two the general sexual abuse crime does not include any o mentioned the rule of let me know what he but he did i did use the word ambiguity and he did say that the statute was poorly drafted and i think i think we certainly would agree that this is this is not a model of the drafters art by any means  through all the canons all the tools legislative history and at the end of the day as justice kagan pointed out you can read it reasonably both ways but we think as a matter of text we actually have the better read my colleague from the solicitor general's office conceded when she was up here that there is no difference between sexual abuse and abuse of sexual conduct so the parties agree on that and yet we draw radically different conclusion the government says the solution is to just limit the modifier to the second term but that doesn't eliminate surplusage it causes the entire modifying phrase the entire category abusive sexual conduct involving a minor award to effectively drop out of the statute our solution is to say give the non redundant portion of the statute involving a minor award some meaning congress use those words for a reason and the reason was the problem they were focused on which is the danger to children so the way to preserve effect for that modifying phrase is to apply it to all three terms which makes perfect sense if two of them mean exactly the same thing why in the world would congress limit only one to minors and children there synonyms it makes sense my problem is why would they include adults as a predicate for the minimum in federal crimes but not history the i know they'd have done it you know their situations yes but why here if they're worried about the abuse of children why would they not capture every conceivable person or every conceivable abusive act towards kids well in addition to that fairness and administrators and mr ability problems we've identified congress reasonably could have determined that people who commit abuse offenses against adults as bad as that is don't pose the same level of danger to children if you saying what they do they do include the sexual abuse adult when you're talking about prior conviction of a federal cr the answer i guess has to be that the drafters know what they're getting into with the federal crimes they have no idea what they're getting into when they're dealing with fifty state crimes is that your response is that that's not kind of what words in your mouth i want to know what that that's what i read in your run of that's one answer but let's take an offense as to which there isn't much ambiguity rape under the the ordinary meaning why would rape in a federal on claim qualify for rape a few yards away perhaps in state territory not comp not qualified because congress was not focused on symmetry in that way the let the federal predicates were added by the  hundred four congress they were they were yes they were made federal predicates the later congress one nine hundred ninety six congress was the one that added to state law predicates so it's not as if the s