Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-5572_l6hn.pdf
Page Number: 27

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

7 

JACKSON, J., concurring 

result, these types of obstruction crimes are generally pun-
ishable by up to a year of incarceration.  See 1 W. LaFave, 
J. Israel,  N. King,  &  O. Kerr,  Criminal  Procedure  §1.8(c), 
pp. 557–558 (4th ed. 2015).  That is so for a reason: As the 
Model Penal Code’s drafters explained, “the existence of a 
residual  misdemeanor  offense”  allows  for  the  “appropri-
ately narrow definition of the serious forms of obstruction 
carrying felony penalties.”  §242.1, Comment 2, at 203.  “A 
broad residual offense . . . provides a hedge against the in-
genuity  of  offenders,”  since  “[n]ot  all  forms  of  obstruction 
can  be  anticipated  and  precisely  proscribed  in  specific  of-
fenses.”  Ibid.  But,  at  the  same  time,  that  kind  of  broad 
criminal statute “must incorporate certain limitations lest
it  nullify  policy  decisions  expressed  elsewhere.”    Ibid.  In 
other words, these broad misdemeanor obstruction statutes 
are “amalgam[s] of generality and constraint.”  Ibid. 

The  Government’s  interpretation  of  §1512(c)(2),  by  con-
trast,  exhibits  all  the  generality  of  these  catchall  misde-
meanor  obstruction  provisions  while  displaying  none  of 
their  restraint.  Section  1512(c)(2)  is  a  felony,  and  it  im-
poses a 20-year maximum sentence—one of the more severe
potential  punishments  in  Chapter  73  of  the  U. S.  Code.
That stands in contrast with Congress’s specification that 
other serious obstructive acts warrant “far shorter terms of 
imprisonment—for  example,  three  years  for  harassment 
under §1512(d)(1), or ten years for threatening a juror un-
der §1503.”  Ante, at 16. 

Finally, it is worth remembering the statutory context in
which  Congress  chose  to  prohibit  the  obstruction-related
conduct  we  are  considering  today.    The  statute  Congress 
wrote addresses this matter in a 13-word phrase, enumer-
ated  “2,”  that  is  located  within  subsection  (c)  of  a  much
broader §1512, which itself consists of “a reticulated list of
nearly two dozen means of committing obstruction.”  Ante, 
at  11.  However  we  might  interpret  Congress’s  drafting
choices in other contexts, we should be wary of finding that