Court Opinion

ID: 9495299
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:59:01.739+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:55.621545
License: Public Domain

*1182NOONAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
It is a familiar principle of law that a statute is not to be construed literally if such construction leads to an absurd result. Public Citizen v. United States Dep’t of Justice, 491 U.S. 440, 454-55, 109 S.Ct. 2558, 105 L.Ed.2d 377 (1989). Even where there has been reluctance to apply this principle, it has not been denied, e.g. Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 U.S. 564, 575, 102 S.Ct. 3245, 73 L.Ed.2d 973 (1982). The difficulty lies in a court determining that a result is so palpably absurd that the literal reading leading to the result subverts the purpose of the legislature and so must be replaced by a nonliteral reading faithful to that purpose. Compare, e.g., Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 457, 12 S.Ct. 511, 36 L.Ed. 226 (1892) with Crooks v. Harrelson, 282 U.S. 55, 59-60, 51 S.Ct. 49, 75 L.Ed. 156 (1930).
Despite the array of authority excluding governments from the meaning of “person,” it seems to me fundamentally subversive of this federal criminal law to construe it so as to leave either federal or state agencies on Indian reservations without federal or state protection against depredation. However, as this panel is bound by Errol D., we must refer this case to an en banc court to reach a different result.