Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-10_ifjn.pdf
Page Number: 7.0

Cite as:  599 U. S. ____ (2023) 

3 

Opinion of the Court 

whole crux of this case is how [petitioner was] billing.”  App.
37–38.  This overbilling was “criminal,” but it “wasn’t ag-
gravated identity theft.”  Id., at 38.  Nevertheless, the Dis-
trict Court denied petitioner’s post-trial challenge to his ag-
gravated identity theft conviction, explaining that contrary
Fifth Circuit precedent tied its hands.  The court said that 
it “hope[d]” it would “get reversed.”  Id., at 39. 

On appeal, a Fifth Circuit panel affirmed.  On rehearing
en banc, a fractured court affirmed again.  Five judges who 
agreed  with  the  Government  nonetheless  acknowledged
that under the Government’s reading of §1028A(a)(1), “the 
elements of [the] offense are not captured or even fairly de-
scribed by the words ‘identity theft.’ ”  27 F. 4th 1021, 1024 
(2022)  (Richman,  C. J.,  concurring).    Eight  dissenting 
judges agreed on this point. 

This type of prosecution is not uncommon.  The Govern-
ment has, by its own admission, wielded §1028A(a)(1) well 
beyond  ordinary  understandings  of  identity  theft.    One 
prosecution targeted a defendant who “made a counterfeit 
handgun  permit”  for  another  person,  using  that  person’s 
real  name  and  at  that  person’s  request.    United  States  v. 
Spears, 729 F. 3d 753, 754 (CA7 2013) (en banc).  Another 
involved  unlicensed  doctors  who  violated  the  law  by
“issu[ing]  prescriptions  that  their  [actual]  patients  would 
then fill at . . . pharmacies.”  United States v. Berroa, 856 
F. 3d 141, 148, 155–156 (CA1 2017).  There was also a pros-
ecution involving an ambulance service inflating its reim-
bursement rates by “mischaracteriz[ing] the nature of the 
transports, saying that the patients had required stretchers
when  they  had  not.”    United  States  v.  Michael,  882  F. 3d 
624, 628 (CA6 2018) (citing United States v. Medlock, 792 
F. 3d  700,  705  (CA6  2015)).    Yet  another  prosecution  in-
volved a defendant who “provided massage services to pa-
tients to treat their pain,” but improperly billed this “as a 
Medicare-eligible physical therapy service.”  United States 
v. Hong, 938 F. 3d 1040, 1051 (CA9 2019).