Opinion ID: 654620
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Eighth Circuit Caselaw.

Text: 22 The defendants rely chiefly on an Eighth Circuit case to support their position that section 844(h)(1) does not apply to this case. In United States v. Lee, 935 F.2d 952 (8th Cir.1991), the court addressed the applicability of section 844(h)(1) to nondestructive cross burning cases and found the statute inapplicable. Id. at 958. In a one-paragraph analysis, the court looked first to the legislative history of section 844(h)(1) instead of to the language of the statute to discern congressional intent. Based on its reading of the legislative history, the court determined that section 844(h)(1) was meant to apply only to arson cases. Id. 23 Yet, as the district court in our case rightly observed, the Lee court's approach puts the cart before the horse. United States v. Hayward, 772 F.Supp. 399, 402 (N.D.Ill.1991). Rather than initially examining the statutory language to determine whether it was ambiguous, unclear, or would have led to an absurd result, the Lee court began with the legislative history of section 844(h)(1). Its reliance on the legislative history, in place of the plain and clear meaning of the statute, caused it to have to guess whether Congress intended section 844(h)(1) to apply to cross burning cases. Lee, 935 F.2d at 958. Such an approach runs counter to the traditional method of statutory construction: The rule [of lenity] comes into operation at the end of the process of construing what Congress has expressed, not at the beginning as an overriding consideration of being lenient to wrongdoers. Callanan v. United States, 364 U.S. 587, 596, 81 S.Ct. 321, 326, 5 L.Ed.2d 312 (1961). Consulting legislative history is intended to resolve ambiguities that arise from the language of a statute; it is not intended to create ambiguities. SeeBifulco, 447 U.S. at 387, 100 S.Ct. at 2252; Callanan, 364 U.S. at 596, 81 S.Ct. at 326. Thus, because the Lee court bypassed the clear and unambiguous language of section 844(h)(1), we reject its determination that section 844(h)(1) does not apply to cross burnings done to violate another's civil rights under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 241. 8 24