Opinion ID: 3010701
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Greater Specificity of S 1623

Text: Does Not Control The district court also concluded that S 1623 was the appropriate statute to rely upon because it is more specific than S 1621. See D.Ct. Op. at 3. The Court's rejection of this position in Batchelder, however, applies with equal force to Sherman's argument here. See supra p.25. Absent congressional intent to the contrary, or a violation of the right to due process of the law, a prosecutor may chose between either of two statutes so long as it does not discriminate. The only exception arises where Congress clearly intended that one statute supplant another; the fact that one statute is more specific than the other is not sufficient. United States v. Hopkins, 916 F.2d 207, 218 (5th Cir. 1990) (citing United States v. Zabel, 702 F.2d 704, 707-08 (8th Cir. 1983)). See also Curran, 20 F.3d at 565. In concluding, we note that neither the district court nor the defendant focus upon the rule of lenity, we note that doctrine would not alter our conclusion. See Dunn v. United States, 442 U.S. 100, (1979). That doctrine would require us to interpret an ambiguity in a criminal statute in favor of a defendant. However, we conclude that the _________________________________________________________________ 550. Conversely, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, the Court noted, was of general application, id. , and [w]here there is no clear intention otherwise, a specific statute will not be controlled or nullified by a general one, regardless of the priority of enactment. Id. at 550-51. We do not think that this determination has any bearing on the case at bar. The Court merely states that the one statute is not privileged over the other, where there is no congressional language to the contrary. 24 congressional intent is clear and the rule therefore has no application. See Batchelder, 442 U.S. at 120. The doctrine that ambiguities in criminal statutes must be resolved in favor of lenity is not applicable here since there is no ambiguity to resolve.