Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-5572_l6hn.pdf
Page Number: 24.0

4 

FISCHER v. UNITED STATES 

JACKSON, J., concurring 

The upshot is that, when interpreting the scope of a par-
ticular statute or rule, our assessment of the words that the 
drafters used informs our understanding of what the rule
was designed to do.2  Discerning the rule’s purpose is criti-
cal when a court is called upon to interpret the provision. 

II 
Turning to the statutory provision at issue here, the pur-
pose of §1512(c), reflected in its text, is clear.  Subsection 
(c)(1)  is  indisputably  focused  on  persons  who  engage  in  a
particular  kind  of  obstructive  conduct:  Anyone  who  “cor-
ruptly . . . alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record,
document, or other object, . . . with the intent to impair the 
object’s  integrity  or  availability  for  use  in  an  official  pro-
ceeding.”  Subsection (c)(2), in turn, is directed at criminal 
conduct that “otherwise” achieves a similar result.  I there-
fore agree with the majority that §1512(c)(2)’s reach is nar-
rower  than  the  Government  contends.    As  the  majority
holds, §1512(c)(2) “makes it a crime to impair the availabil-
ity or integrity of records, documents, or objects used in an
official  proceeding  in  ways  other  than  those  specified  in 
(c)(1)” and to “impai[r] the availability or integrity of other 
things used in an official proceeding beyond the ‘record[s],
document[s],  or  other  object[s]’  enumerated  in  (c)(1).” 

—————— 
542 (1940).  “There is no invariable rule for the discovery of that inten-
tion.”  Ibid.  As one treatise explains, such canons are “not . . . rule[s] of 
law” but rather “one of various factors to be considered.”  A. Scalia & B. 
Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 212 (2012); see 
also id., at 196–198.  We apply these canons because we understand that
their  principles  are  consistent  with  how  users  of  language—including 
legislators—convey meaning.  See id., at 212 (“Any lawyer or legislative
drafter who writes two or more specifics followed by a general residual 
term  without  the  intention  that  the  residual  term  be  limited  may  be
guilty of malpractice”).  As such, they are valid indicia of Congress’s pur-
pose. 

2 Other indicia of the drafters’ intent, such as the rule’s context or en-
actment history, can further inform our understanding of the rule.  See 
infra, at 5–8.