Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-7451_m64o.pdf
Page Number: 39

12 

YATES v. UNITED STATES 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

as  the  other  is  only  an  object  that  preserves  or  stores
information.  But “[t]he normal rule of statutory construc-
tion  assumes  that  identical  words  used  in  different  parts 
of the same act,” passed at the same time, “are intended to
have the same meaning.”  Sorenson v. Secretary of Treas-
ury,  475  U. S.  851,  860  (1986)  (internal  quotation  marks
omitted).  And  that  is  especially  true  when  the  different 
provisions pertain to the same subject.  See supra, at 5–6. 
The  plurality  doesn’t—really,  can’t—explain  why  it  in-
stead interprets the same words used in two provisions of 
the same Act addressing the same basic problem to mean 
fundamentally different things.

Getting nowhere with surplusage, the plurality switches
canons,  hoping  that  noscitur  a  sociis  and  ejusdem  generis 
will save it.  See ante, at 13–16; see also ante, at 1–2 (opin-
ion of ALITO, J.).  The first of those related canons advises 
that  words  grouped  in  a  list  be  given  similar  meanings. 
The second counsels that a general term following specific
words  embraces  only  things  of  a  similar  kind.    According
to  the  plurality,  those  Latin  maxims  change  the  English
meaning  of  “tangible  object”  to  only  things,  like  records 
and  documents,  “used  to  record  or  preserve  information.” 
Ante, at 14.5  But understood as this Court always has, the
canons  have  no  such  transformative  effect  on  the  worka-

—————— 

5 The  plurality  seeks  support  for  this  argument  in  the  Sentencing 
Commission’s  construction  of  the  phrase  “records,  documents,  or
tangible objects,” ante, at 14, but to no avail.  The plurality cites a note
in the Commission’s Manual clarifying that this phrase, as used in the 
Sentencing  Guidelines,  “includes”  various  electronic 
information, 
communications,  and  storage  devices.  United  States  Sentencing
Commission,  Guidelines  Manual  §2J1.2,  comment.,  n. 1  (Nov.  2014) 
(USSG).  But  “includes”  (following  its  ordinary  definition)  “is  not 
exhaustive,”  as  the  Commission’s  commentary  makes  explicit.    USSG 
§1B1.1,  comment.,  n. 2.    Otherwise,  the  Commission’s  construction 
wouldn’t  encompass  paper  documents.    All  the  note  does  is  to  make 
plain  that  “records,  documents,  or  tangible  objects”  embraces  stuff 
relating to the digital (as well as the material) world.