Opinion ID: 4368537
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Duties and Functions of Assistant Attorney

Text: General The Attorney General also argues that all three conditions are authorized by 34 U.S.C. § 10102, the provision establishing the “Duties and Functions of Assistant Attorney General” for the Office of Justice Programs. That provision provides, in relevant part, that “[t]he Assistant Attorney General shall”: 22 exercise such other powers and functions as may be vested in the Assistant Attorney General pur- suant to this chapter or by delegation of the At- torney General, including placing special conditions on all grants, and determining priority purposes for formula grants. 34 U.S.C. § 10102(a)(6) (emphasis added). The Attorney General argues that because this provision authorizes “placing special conditions on all grants,” it authorizes placing the Challenged Conditions on the Byrne JAG grant. But the Attorney General’s argument runs headlong into an obstacle: the word “including.” 10 In the Attorney General’s view, the Special Conditions Clause confers upon the AAG new authority, not found elsewhere in the Code, to establish conditions on grants. This clause, however, is preceded by the word “including,” which is used to denote something that is within a larger whole. See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, 1143 (3d ed. 1993) (defining “include” as “to place, list, or rate as a part or component of a whole or of a larger group class or aggregate”). 10 Several other federal courts have identified this flaw in the Attorney General’s reasoning. See, e.g., Chicago II, 888 F.3d at 285 (“Because that interpretation is so obviously belied by the plain meaning of the word ‘including,’ the Attorney General’s position is untenable.”); New York, et al., 2018 WL 6257693, at  (“The problem for Defendants is that the [Clause] begins with the word ‘including.’”); San Francisco, 2018 WL 4859528, at  (“The clause begins with the word ‘including,’ conveying a reference to part of a whole.”). 23 In the case of this provision, “including” signifies that the Special Conditions Clause is part of “such other powers and functions as may be vested in the Assistant Attorney General pursuant to this chapter or by delegation of the Attorney General.” 34 U.S.C. § 10102(a)(6) (emphasis added). Therefore, under the plain text of this provision, the AAG has the power to place special conditions on grants only to the extent that such power has been vested in him or her “pursuant to this chapter or by delegation of the Attorney General.” As we discussed in the previous section, the broad authority he urges has not been vested in the Attorney General or the AAG in the Byrne JAG statute or anywhere else in the United States Code. Therefore, the Special Conditions Clause cannot authorize this power on its own. The structure of Section 10102 also casts serious doubt on the Attorney General’s interpretation. The Special Conditions Clause is housed in the sixth of six subsections delineating the AAG’s power. The preceding five subsections all deal with the AAG’s power to disseminate criminal justice information and coordinate with various agencies and officials. See 34 U.S.C. § 10102(a)(1)-(5). The principle of noscitur a sociis— “a word is known by the company it keeps”—is helpful here. Yates v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 1074, 1085 (2015). Given the ministerial nature of the powers in the preceding five subsections, we would be hesitant to find such a sweeping grant of authority in the sixth subsection absent clear language to support that interpretation. 11 Moreover, hiding such a broad 11 In stating this, we join the District Court and several other federal courts. See Chicago II, 888 F.3d at 285 (“§ 10102(a)(6) would be an unlikely place for Congress to place a power as broad as the one the Attorney General asserts.”); Philadelphia I, 280 F. Supp. 3d at 617 (“Congress is unlikely to ground the 24 power—the power to place any special conditions on all grants—in a statute outlining ministerial duties for an Assistant Attorney General would be akin to hiding an elephant in a mousehole. And Congress “does not, one might say, hide elephants in mouseholes.” Whitman v. Am. Trucking Ass’ns, 531 U.S. 457, 468 (2001). Given its text and structure, 34 U.S.C. § 10102 does not authorize the Attorney General’s imposition of the Challenged Conditions. We turn, then, to the Attorney General’s final statutory argument.