Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-10_ifjn.pdf
Page Number: 30

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

5 

 GORSUCH, J., concurring
GORSUCH, J., concurring in judgment 

the sorts of problems that invariably arise in even simple
§1028A(a)(1) cases involving bogus restaurant bills.  Other 
contexts  can  present  still  greater  complications  and  still
deeper uncertainties.  The problem we face, then, is not that
§1028A(a)(1)  presents  some  hard  cases  at  its  edges;  the 
problem is this statute has no easy cases.  Really, you could 
spend a whole day cooking up scenarios—ranging from the
mundane  to  the  fanciful—that  collapse  even  your  most
basic intuitions about what §1028A(a)(1) does and does not 
criminalize.  Try making up some of your own and running 
them by a friend or family member.  You may be surprised 
at how sharply instincts diverge.

For  the  less  adventurous,  consider  just  the  facts  of  the
case now before us.  On one framing, it seems outrageous to 
convict  Mr.  Dubin  of  aggravated  identity  theft.    After  all, 
the patient did (at one point) receive psychological testing.
So  you  might  say,  as  the  Court  does,  that  Mr.  Dubin  lied 
only about the qualifications of the individual who provided 
those  services  and  the  date  on  which  they  occurred.    See 
ante, at 2, 20.  But on another framing, the patient’s iden-
tity was “a key mover,” perhaps even “at the crux,” of the
fraud.  Mr. Dubin could not have successfully billed the in-
surance provider without accurately offering up some spe-
cific  patient’s  name  and  information.  Nor,  as  the  United 
States notes, could Mr. Dubin have simply drawn a random
name from a hat.  Rather, his fraud depended on purloining
the specific identity of a “Texas Medicaid enrollee who had 
at least three hours of psychological-testing reimbursement 
left in his or her account.”  Brief for United States 13.  Along
the way, Mr. Dubin’s fraud directly harmed the patient by 
depriving  him  of  his  annual  eligibility  for  otherwise- 
compensable  psychological  services.    From  the  patient’s
perspective, Mr. Dubin’s use of his “means of identification” 
could hardly feel “ancillary.”  Ante, at 1–2. 

As an abstract exercise, debating fact patterns like these 
may  seem  good  fun.  But  there  is  nothing  entertaining