Court Opinion

ID: 9493614
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:13:10.110404+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:55.896288
License: Public Domain

SACK, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent for the reasons set forth in dicta in United States v. Carrozzella, 105 F.3d 796, 800 (2d Cir.1997), quoted in the majority opinion, ante at [6]. I have no disagreement with the majority’s view that “a broad construction of the phrase ‘violation of any judicial ... process not addressed elsewhere in the guidelines’ is consistent with the overall structure and intent of the Guidelines,” and “addresses the ‘aggravated criminal intent’ associated with bankruptcy fraud,” ante at [10-11], but I do not think that those considerations permit the Court to do what the majority seems to: read the word “process” in the particular context of § 2F1.1(b)(4)(B) to mean “proceeding.”
To be sure, the word “process,” standing alone, can mean “[t]he proceedings in any action or prosecution,” its first definition in Black’s Law Dictionary 1222 (7th Ed.1999).* But it does not make sense to me to read the language of § 2F1.1(b)(4)(B) using “process” that way, i.e., “violation of any judicial or administrative order, injunction, decree, or proceedings in any action.”
I think that the plain meaning of “process” in the phrase “violation of any judicial or administrative order, injunction, decree, or process,” is its narrow one: “A summons or writ, esp. to appear or respond in court <service of process>.” Id. If the drafters of the Guidelines, instead of thus reciting four kinds of specific judicial commands as predicates for the two-level enhancement in § 2F1.1(b)(4)(B), as the
*164Carrozzella Court thought, meant to switch in mid-phrase from a recitation of three kinds of judicial commands to an all-encompassing general description of occurrences during lawsuits — “proceedings”—it seems to me that they would have told us so.

The dictionary's first definition of “proceeding” is, "The regular and orderly progression of a lawsuit, including all acts and events between the time of commencement and the entry of judgment.” Id. at 1221.