Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-783_k53l.pdf
Page Number: 11.0

Cite as:  593 U. S. ____ (2021) 

7 

Opinion of the Court 

refers to a “manner or circumstance,” the Government sim-
ultaneously ignores the definition’s further instruction that
such  manner  or  circumstance  already  will  “ ‘ha[ve]  been 
stated,’ ”  “ ‘asserted,’ ”  or  “ ‘described.’ ”    Id.,  at  18  (quoting
Black’s Law Dictionary, at 1246; 15 Oxford English Diction-
ary, at 887).  Under the Government’s approach, the rele-
vant  circumstance—the  one  rendering  a  person’s  conduct 
illegal—is not identified earlier in the statute.  Instead, “so” 
captures  any  circumstance-based  limit  appearing  any-
where—in the United States Code, a state statute, a private
agreement, or anywhere else.  And while the Government 
tries to cabin its interpretation by suggesting that any such
limit must be “specifically and explicitly” stated, “express,” 
and “inherent in the authorization itself,” the Government 
does  not  identify  any  textual  basis  for  these  guardrails. 
Brief for United States 19; Tr. of Oral Arg. 41.

Van Buren’s account of “so”—namely, that “so” references 
the previously stated “manner or circumstance” in the text 
of  §1030(e)(6)  itself—is  more  plausible  than  the  Govern-
ment’s.  “So” is not a free-floating term that provides a hook 
for  any  limitation  stated  anywhere.    It  refers  to  a  stated, 
identifiable  proposition  from  the  “preceding”  text;  indeed, 
“so” typically “[r]epresent[s]” a “word or phrase already em-
ployed,” thereby avoiding the need for repetition.  15 Oxford 
English Dictionary, at 887; see Webster’s Third New Inter-
national Dictionary 2160 (1986) (so “often used as a substi-
tute . . . to express the idea of a preceding phrase”).  Myriad
federal statutes illustrate this ordinary usage.3  We agree 
—————— 

3 See, e.g., 7 U. S. C. §171(8) (authorizing Secretary of Agriculture “[t]o
sell  guayule  or  rubber  processed  from  guayule  and  to  use  funds  so  ob-
tained  in  replanting  and  maintaining  an  area”);  18  U. S. C.  §648  (any
person  responsible  for  “safe-keeping of  the  public  moneys”  who  “loans,
uses, or converts to his own use . . . any portion of the public moneys . . . 
is guilty of embezzlement of the money so loaned, used, converted, de-
posited, or exchanged”); §1163 (“[W]hoever embezzles, steals, [or] know-
ingly  converts  to  his  use”  money  or  property  “belonging  to  any  Indian 
tribal  organization,”  or  “[w]hoever,  knowing  any  such  moneys  . . .  or