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Page Number: 37

10 

YATES v. UNITED STATES 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

For  example,  an  FBI  investigation  counts  as  a  matter 
within  a  federal  department’s  jurisdiction,  but  falls  out-
side  the  statutory  definition  of  “official  proceeding”  as 
construed  by  courts.    See,  e.g.,  United  States  v.  Gabriel, 
125  F.  3d  89,  105,  n.  13  (CA2  1997).    But  conversely,
§1512(c)(1)  sometimes  reaches  more  widely  than  §1519.
For example, because an “official proceeding” includes any 
“proceeding  before  a  judge  or  court  of  the  United  States,” 
§1512(c)(1)  prohibits  tampering  with  evidence  in  federal
litigation  between  private  parties.    See  §1515(a)(1)(A); 
United  States  v.  Burge,  711  F. 3d  803,  808–810  (CA7 
2013); United States v. Reich, 479 F. 3d 179, 185–187 (CA2 
2007)  (Sotomayor,  J.).    By  contrast,  §1519  wouldn’t  ordi-
narily operate in that context because a federal court isn’t 
a “department or agency.”  See Hubbard v. United States, 
514  U. S.  695,  715  (1995).3    So  the  surplusage  canon 
doesn’t  come  into  play.4   Overlap—even  significant  over-
lap—abounds in the criminal law.  See Loughrin v. United 

—————— 

3 The plurality’s objection to this statement is difficult to understand. 
It  cannot  take  issue  with  Hubbard’s  holding  that  “a  federal  court  is
neither  a  ‘department’  nor  an  ‘agency’ ”  in  a  statute  referring,  just  as
§1519 does, to “any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or
agency of the United States.”  514 U. S., at 698, 715.  So the plurality
suggests that  the phrase “in relation to . . . any such matter” in §1519 
somehow changes Hubbard’s result.  See ante, at 12–13, and n. 5.  But 
that  phrase  still  demands  that  evidence-tampering  relate  to  a  “matter
within the jurisdiction of any department or agency”—excluding courts, 
as Hubbard commands.  That is why the federal government, as far as 
I  can  tell,  has  never  once  brought  a  prosecution  under  §1519  for
evidence-tampering in litigation between private parties.  It instead uses 
§1512(c)(1) for that purpose. 

4 Section 1512(c)(1) also applies more broadly than §1519 in proceed-
ings relating to insurance regulation.  The term “official proceeding” in 
§1512(c)(1) is defined to include “proceeding[s] involving the business of
insurance  whose  activities  affect  interstate  commerce  before  any
insurance  regulatory  official  or  agency.”    §1515(a)(1)(D).    But  §1519 
wouldn’t  usually  apply  in  that  context  because  state,  not  federal,
agencies handle most insurance regulation.