Opinion ID: 118188
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: has been deported , and thereafter

Text: (2) enters . . . , or is at any time found in, the United States [without the Attorney General's consent or the legal equivalent], shall be guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof, be punished by imprisonment of not more than two years, or by a fine of not more than $1,000, or both. (b) Notwithstanding subsection (a) of this section, in the case of any alien described in such subsection (1) whose deportation was subsequent to a convic- tion for commission of a felony (other than an aggra- vated felony), such alien shall be fined under title 18, imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both; or (2) whose deportation was subsequent to a convic- tion for commission of an aggravated felony, such alien shall be fined under such title, imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both. 8 U. S. C. § 1326 (1988 ed.) (emphasis added). Thus, at the time of the amendment, the operative language of subsection (a)'s ordinary reentering-alien provision said that a reentering alien  shall be guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof, be punished by imprisonment of not more than two years, or by a fine of not more than $1,000. The 1988 amendment, subsection (b), by way of contrast, referred only to punishmentan increased punishment for the felon, or the aggravated felon, whom subsection (a) has described. Although one could read the language, any alien described in [subsection (a)], standing alone, as importing subsection (a)'s elements into new offenses defined in subsection (b), that reading seems both unusual and awkward when taken in context, for the reasons just given. Linguistically speaking, it seems more likely that Congress simply meant to describe an alien who, in the words of the 1988 statute, was guilty of a felony defined in subsection (a) and convict[ed] thereof. As the dissent points out, post, at 265, Congress later struck from subsection (a) the words just quoted, and added in their place the words, shall be fined under title 18, or imprisoned not more than two years. See Immigration Act of 1990 (1990 Act), § 543(b)(3), 104 Stat. 5059. But this amendment was one of a series in the 1990 Act that uniformly updated and simplified the phrasing of various, disparate civil and criminal penalty provisions in the Immigration and Naturalization Act. See, e. g., 1990 Act, § 543(b)(1) (amending 8 U. S. C. § 1282(c)); § 543(b)(2)(C) (amending 8 U. S. C. § 1325); § 543(b)(4) (amending 8 U. S. C. § 1327); § 543(b)(5) (amending 8 U. S. C. § 1328). The section of the Act that contained the amendment is titled Increase in Fine Levels; Authority of the INS to Collect Fines, and the relevant subsection, simply Criminal Fine Levels. 1990 Act, § 543(b), 104 Stat. 5057, 5059. Although the 1990 amendment did have the effect of making the penalty provision in subsection (a) (which had remained unchanged since 1952) parallel with its counterparts in later enacted subsection (b), neither the amendment's language, nor the legislative history of the 1990 Act, suggests that in this housekeeping measure, Congress intended to change, or to clarify, the fundamental relationship between the two subsections. We also note that the title of a statute and the heading of a section are tools available for the resolution of a doubt about the meaning of a statute. Trainmen v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 331 U. S. 519, 528-529 (1947); see also INS v. National Center for Immigrants' Rights, Inc., 502 U. S. 183, 189 (1991). The title of the 1988 amendment is Criminal penalties for reentry of certain deported aliens. § 7345, 102 Stat. 4471 (emphasis added). A title that contains the word penalties more often, but certainly not always, see post, at 266-267, signals a provision that deals with penalties for a substantive crime. In this instance the amendment's title does not reflect careless, or mistaken, drafting, for the title is reinforced by a legislative history that speaks about, and only about, the creation of new penalties. See S. 973, 100th Cong., 1st Sess. (1987), 133 Cong. Rec. 8771 (1987) (original bill titled, A bill to provide for additional criminal penalties for deported aliens who reenter the United States, and for other purposes); 134 Cong. Rec. 27429 (1988) (section-by-section analysis referring to Senate bill as increasing penalties for unlawful reentry); id., at 27445 (remarks of Sen. D'Amato) (law would increas[e] current penalties for illegal reentry after deportation); id., at 27462 (remarks of Sen. Chiles) (law would impose stiff penalties against deported aliens previously convicted of drug offenses); 133 Cong. Rec. 28840 28841 (1987) (remarks of Rep. Smith) (corresponding House bill creates three-tier penalty structure). The history, to our knowledge, contains no language at all that indicates Congress intended to create a new substantive crime. Finally, the contrary interpretationa substantive criminal offenserisks unfairness. If subsection (b)(2) sets forth a separate crime, the Government would be required to prove to the jury that the defendant was previously deported subsequent to a conviction for commission of an aggravated felony. As this Court has long recognized, the introduction of evidence of a defendant's prior crimes risks significant prejudice. See, e. g., Spencer v. Texas, 385 U. S. 554, 560 (1967) (evidence of prior crimes is generally recognized to have potentiality for prejudice). Even if a defendant's stipulation were to keep the name and details of the previous offense from the jury, see Old Chief v. United States, 519 U. S. 172, 178-179 (1997), jurors would still learn, from the indictment, the judge, or the prosecutor, that the defendant had committed an aggravated felony. And, as we said last Term, there can be no question that evidence of the . . . nature of the prior offense, here, that it was aggravated or serious, carries a risk of unfair prejudice to the defendant. Id., at 185 (emphasis added). Like several lower courts, we do not believe, other things being equal, that Congress would have wanted to create this kind of unfairness in respect to facts that are almost never contested. See, e. g., United States v. Forbes, 16 F. 3d, at 1298-1300; United States v. Rumney, 867 F. 2d 714, 718-719 (CA1 1989); United States v. Brewer, 853 F. 2d 1319, 1324-1325 (CA6 1988) (en banc); United States v. Jackson, 824 F. 2d, at 25-26; Government of Virgin Islands v. Castillo, 550 F. 2d 850, 854 (CA3 1977). In sum, we believe that Congress intended to set forth a sentencing factor in subsection (b)(2) and not a separate criminal offense.