Opinion ID: 1435420
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Text and Legislative History

Text: We begin with the text of the statute. Section 371 contains three key provisions. First, two or more persons conspire. Second, the object of the conspiracy must be either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose. Third, one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy. Although the second provision contains a number of alternatives, this does not suggest that § 371 creates more than one offense. `A statute often makes punishable the doing of one thing or another, ... sometimes thus specifying a considerable number of things. Then, by proper and ordinary construction, a person who in one transaction does all, violates the statute but once, and incurs only one penalty.' Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46, 51, 112 S.Ct. 466, 116 L.Ed.2d 371 (1991) (ellipsis in original) (quoting 1 J. Bishop, New Criminal Procedure § 436, at 355-56 (2d ed.1913)); see also Schad v. Arizona, 501 U.S. 624, 635-36, 111 S.Ct. 2491, 115 L.Ed.2d 555 (1991) ([L]egislatures frequently enumerate alternative means of committing a crime without intending to define separate elements or separate crimes.); United States v. Yeaman, 194 F.3d 442, 453 (3d Cir.1999) (holding that statute criminalizing device, scheme or artifice to defraud, an obtaining of money or property by material misrepresentation, or a transaction that operates as a fraud or deceit on a purchaser creates single offense (internal quotation marks omitted)); United States v. Navarro, 145 F.3d 580, 589-90 (3d Cir.1998) (holding that federal money laundering statute creates a single offense which can be committed in three alternate ways); Fed.R.Crim.P. 7(c)(1) (authorizing a single count to allege that an offense was committed by one or more specified means); Milanovich v. United States, 365 U.S. 551, 553-54, 81 S.Ct. 728, 5 L.Ed.2d 773 (1961) (holding that defendant cannot be separately convicted under both prongs of 18 U.S.C. § 641, which prohibits embezzling or stealing from the United States or receiving such stolen property). In United States v. Jerry Smith , the Ninth Circuit analyzed the text of § 371 and made the following observations about its structure: Here the defendants were charged with a conspiracy under separate clauses of the same statute, not two separate statutes. It would be strange to infer that Congress intended to punish twice a conspiracy that violates both clauses. Where a single criminal statute prohibits alternative acts, courts should not infer the legislature's intent to impose multiple punishment. 891 F.2d 703, 712 (9th Cir.1989) (citation omitted). We agree that under a natural reading, § 371 creates a single offense. The relevant portion of § 371 is not just a single statute, but a single sentence, divided only by commas. The use of the word either before to commit any offense and to defraud suggests that these objects are meant to provide alternatives rather than to create separate offenses. Furthermore, these alternatives come in the middle of the sentence, and are followed by the description of an additional element. Although it is limited, the legislative history of § 371 is consistent with this interpretation. The original federal conspiracy statute was enacted in 1867 as part of An Act to amend existing Laws relating to Internal Revenue, and for other Purposes. See 14 Stat. 471, 484 (1867). [8] Because of its incorporation in an act concerning revenue, some believed that both prongs of the conspiracy statute were directed only at conspiracy to defraud the United States of its revenue. Jerry Smith, 891 F.2d at 712. However, the Supreme Court concluded that the conspiracy statute made criminal every form of conspiracy against the United States, and every form of conspiracy to defraud them. United States v. Hirsch, 100 U.S. 33, 35-36, 25 L.Ed. 539 (1879) (noting that it was not unusual for Congress to combine incongruous legislation in the same bill). Further, at the time Congress enacted § 371 in its modern form in 1948, it was aware that the courts interpreted similar language in a predecessor conspiracy statute to create a single offense. See United States v. Manton, 107 F.2d 834, 838 (2d Cir.1939) (Sutherland, J.) (holding that the separate prongs of predecessor conspiracy statute created a single offense). [9]