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Page Number: 21

18 

YATES v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of GINSBURG, J. 

qualified.  See  Final  Report  of  the  National  Commission 
on  Reform  of  Federal  Criminal  Laws  §1323,  pp.  116–117
(1971).

Section  1519  conspicuously  lacks  the  limits  built  into 
the  MPC  provision  and  the  federal  proposal.    It  describes 
not  a  misdemeanor,  but  a  felony  punishable  by  up  to  20
years  in  prison.    And  the  section  covers  conduct  intended 
to impede any federal investigation or proceeding, includ-
ing  one  not  even  on  the  verge  of  commencement.    Given 
these  significant  differences,  the  meaning  of  “record,
document,  or  thing”  in  the  MPC  provision  and  a  kindred 
proposal  is  not  a  reliable  indicator  of  the  meaning  Con-
gress assigned to “record, document, or tangible object” in 
§1519.  The MPC provision, in short, tells us neither “what 
Congress  wrote  [nor]  what  Congress  wanted,”  cf.  post,  at 
15, concerning Yates’s small fish as the subject of a federal 
felony prosecution. 

C 
Finally,  if  our  recourse  to  traditional  tools  of  statutory
construction  leaves  any  doubt  about  the  meaning  of  “tan-
gible  object,”  as  that  term  is  used  in  §1519,  we  would 
invoke  the  rule  that  “ambiguity  concerning  the  ambit  of
criminal  statutes  should  be  resolved  in  favor  of  lenity.” 
Cleveland  v.  United  States,  531  U. S.  12,  25  (2000)  (quot-
ing  Rewis  v.  United  States,  401  U. S.  808,  812  (1971)).
That  interpretative  principle  is  relevant  here,  where  the 
Government  urges  a  reading  of  §1519  that  exposes  indi-
viduals to 20-year prison sentences for tampering with any
physical  object  that  might  have  evidentiary  value  in  any
federal  investigation  into  any  offense,  no  matter  whether 
the  investigation  is  pending  or  merely  contemplated,  or 
whether the offense subject to investigation is criminal or 
civil.  See  Liparota  v.  United  States,  471  U. S.  419,  427 
(1985)  (“Application  of  the  rule  of  lenity  ensures  that 
criminal  statutes  will  provide  fair  warning  concerning