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UNITED STATES v. HANSEN 

Syllabus 

as those terms are used in ordinary conversation (thus encompassing 
a broader swath).  Pp. 5–9. 

(1) Criminal  solicitation  is  the  intentional  encouragement  of  an 
unlawful act, and facilitation—i.e., aiding and abetting—is the provi-
sion 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 over-
breadth challenge would be hard to sustain.  Pp. 6–8. 

(2) Hansen, like the Ninth Circuit, insists that clause (iv) uses “en-
courages”  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 In-
ternational Dictionary 1269, and “encourage” means to “inspire with 
courage, spirit, or hope,” Webster’s Third New International Diction-
ary 747.  If clause (iv) conveys these ordinary meanings, it arguably 
reaches abstract advocacy or general encouragement, and its applica-
tions 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 bor-
rowed  word.”    Morissette v.  United  States,  342  U. S.  246,  263.    That 
inference is even stronger here, because clause (iv) prohibits “encour-
aging” and “inducing” a violation of law, which is the object of solicita-
tion 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 dif-
ferentiates among  them.    Here,  the  context  of  these  words  indicates 
that Congress used them as terms of art.  Pp. 9–11. 

(2) Statutory history is an important part of the relevant context.  
When Congress enacted in 1885 what would become the template for 
clause (iv), it criminalized “knowingly assisting, encouraging or solic-
iting”  immigration  under  a  contract  to  perform  labor.    23  Stat.  333.