# United States v. Hansen

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
UNITED STATES v. HANSEN CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT No. 22–179. Argued March 27, 2023—Decided June 23, 2023
Respondent Helaman Hansen promised hundreds of noncitizens a path to U. S. citizenship through “adult adoption.” But that was a scam. Though there is no path to citizenship through “adult adoption,” Hansen earned nearly $2 million from his scheme. The United States charged Hansen with, inter alia, violating 8 U. S. C. §1324(a)(1)(A)(iv), which forbids “encourag[ing] or induc[ing] an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such [activity] is or will be in violation of law.” Hansen was convicted and moved to dismiss the clause (iv) charges on First Amendment overbreadth grounds. The District Court rejected Hansen’s argument, but the Ninth Circuit concluded that clause (iv) was unconstitutionally overbroad.
Held: Because §1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) forbids only the purposeful solicitation and facilitation of specific acts known to violate federal law, the clause is not unconstitutionally overbroad. Pp. 4–20.
(a) Hansen’s First Amendment overbreadth challenge rests on the claim that clause (iv) punishes so much protected speech that it cannot be applied to anyone, including him. A court will hold a statute facially invalid under the overbreadth doctrine if the law “prohibits a substantial amount of protected speech” relative to its “plainly legitimate sweep.” United States v. Williams, 553 U. S. 285, 292. In such a circumstance, society’s interest in free expression outweighs its interest in the statute’s lawful applications. Otherwise, courts must handle unconstitutional applications as they usually do—case-by-case. Pp. 4–5.
(1) Criminal solicitation is the intentional encouragement of an unlawful act, and facilitation—i.e., aiding and abetting—is the provision of assistance to a wrongdoer with the intent to further an offense’s commission. Neither requires lending physical aid; for both, words may be enough. And both require an intent to bring about a particular unlawful act. The terms “encourage” and “induce,” found in clause (iv), are among the “most common” verbs used to denote solicitation and facilitation. 2 W. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law §13.2(a). Their specialized usage is displayed in the federal criminal code as well as the criminal laws of every State. If the challenged statute uses those terms as they are typically understood in the criminal law, an overbreadth challenge would be hard to sustain. Pp. 6–8.
(2) Hansen, like the Ninth Circuit, insists that clause (iv) uses “encourages” and “induces” in their ordinary rather than specialized sense. In ordinary parlance, “induce” means “[to] lead on; to influence; to prevail on; to move by persuasion or influence,” Webster’s New International Dictionary 1269, and “encourage” means to “inspire with courage, spirit, or hope,” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 747. If clause (iv) conveys these ordinary meanings, it arguably reaches abstract advocacy or general encouragement, and its applications to protected speech might render it vulnerable to an overbreadth challenge. P. 9.
(c) The Court holds that clause (iv) uses “encourages or induces” in its specialized, criminal-law sense—that is, as incorporating common-law liability for solicitation and facilitation. Pp. 9–13.
(1) Context indicates that Congress used those words as terms of art. “Encourage” and “induce” have well-established legal meanings—and when Congress “borrows terms of art in which are accumulated the legal tradition and meaning of centuries of practice, it presumably knows and adopts the cluster of ideas that were attached to each borrowed word.” Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246, 263. That inference is even stronger here, because clause (iv) prohibits “encouraging” and “inducing” a violation of law, which is the object of solicitation and facilitation too. The Ninth Circuit stacked the deck in favor of ordinary meaning, but it should have given specialized meaning a fair shake. When words have several plausible definitions, context differentiates among them. Here, the context of these words indicates that Congress used them as terms of art. Pp. 9–11.
(d) Hansen argues that the absence of an express mens rea requirement in clause (iv) means that the statute is not limited to solicitation and facilitation. But when Congress placed “encourages” and “induces” in clause (iv), the traditional intent associated with solicitation and facilitation was part of the package. The federal aiding and abetting statute works the same way: It contains no express mens rea requirement but implicitly incorporates the traditional state of mind required for aiding and abetting. Rosemond v. United States, 572 U. S. 65, 70–71. Clause (iv) is situated among other provisions that function in the same manner. See, e.g., §§1324(a)(1)(A)(v)(I), (II). Since “encourages or induces” draws on the same common-law principles, clause (iv) also incorporates a mens rea requirement implicitly. Pp. 13–16.
(e) Finally, it bears emphasis that the canon of constitutional avoidance counsels the Court to adopt the Government’s reading if it is at least “ ‘fairly possible.’ ” Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U. S. ___, ___. Pp. 16–17.
25 F. 4th 1103, reversed and remanded.
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