Court Opinion

ID: 9427079
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:41.559857+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:04.268440
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rehnquist,
dissenting.
I am unable to agree with the Court's conclusion in this litigation that petitioners, upon being convicted and sentenced under 18 U. S. G. § 2113 (d) for armed robbery, could not have their sentence enhanced pursuant to the provisions of 18 U. S. C. § 924 (c), which provides that when a defendant uses a firearm in the commission of a felony, he “shall, in addition to the punishment provided for the commission of such felony, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment for not less than one year nor more than ten years.” The plain language of the statutes involved certainly confers this sentencing authority upon the District Court. The Court chooses to avoid this *17plain meaning by resort to a canon of construction with which no one disagrees, “our practice of avoiding constitutional decisions where possible,” ante, at 12. The Court then relies on a statement made on the floor of the House of Representatives by Congressman Poff, who sponsored the amendment which became this part of the Gun Control Act of 1968, to the effect that the amendment would not apply to offenses governed by 18 U. S. C. § 2113. But neither of these proffered rationales justifies the Court’s decision today.
The canon of construction which the Court purports to follow is like all other canons, only a guide to enable this Court to perform its function. As the Court said in Shapiro v. United States, 335 U. S. 1, 31 (1948):
“The canon of avoidance of constitutional doubts must, like the ‘plain meaning’ rule, give way where its application would produce a futile result, or an unreasonable result ‘plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole.’ ”
While legislative history as well as the language of the statute itself may be used to interpret the meaning of statutory language, United States v. American Trucking Assns., 310 U. S. 534, 543 (1940), the decisions of this Court have established that some types of legislative history are substantially more reliable than others. The report of a joint conference committee of both Houses of Congress, for example, or the report of a Senate or House committee, is accorded a good deal more weight than the remarks even of the sponsor of a particular portion of a bill on the floor of the chamber. See, e. g., Chandler v. Roudebush, 425 U. S. 840, 858 n. 36 (1976); United States v. Automobile Workers, 352 U. S. 567, 585-586 (1957). It is a matter of common knowledge that at any given time during the debate, particularly a prolonged debate, of a bill the members of either House in attendance on the floor may not be great, and it is only these members, or those who later read the remarks in the Congressional *18Record, who will have the benefit of the floor remarks. In the last analysis, it is the statutory language embodied in the enrolled bill which Congress enacts, and that must be our first reference point in interpreting its meaning.
The Court’s disregard of this plain meaning is inappropriate in this litigation both because of the circumstances under which the Gun Control Act was passed in June 1968, and because of the gauzy nature of the constitutional concerns which apparently underlie its reluctance to read the statutes as they are written. Several different bills dealing with firearms control, which had been bottled up in various stages of the legislative process prior to June 1968, were brought to the floor and enacted with dramatic swiftness following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy in the early part of that month. Senator Kennedy’s assassination, following by less than three months the similar killing of Reverend Martin. Luther King, obviously focused the attention of Congress on the problem of firearms control. It seems to me not only permissible but irresistible, in reading the language of the two statutes, to conclude that Congress intended when it enacted § 924 (c) to authorize the enhancement of the sentence already imposed by virtue of 18U.S.C. §2113 (d).
The Court expresses concern, however, that if this construction were adopted problems of double jeopardy would be raised by virtue of our decision in Blockburger v. United States, 284 U. S. 299 (1932). Blockburger, of course, was not based on the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Constitution, but simply upon an analysis of relevant principles of statutory construction for determining “whether two offenses are sufficiently distinguishable to permit the imposition of cumulative punishment.” Brown v. Ohio, 432 U. S. 161, 166 (1977); ante, at 11. To speak of a congressional provision for enhanced punishment for an offense, as § 924 (c) clearly is, as raising constitutional doubts under the “Blockburger test” is to use the language of metaphysics, rather than of constitutional law.
*19Brown v. Ohio, supra, decided last Term, provides no more support for the majority’s position. That case involved two entirely separate and distinct prosecutions for the same act, one for the crime of stealing an automobile and the other for the admittedly lesser included offense of operating the same vehicle without the owner’s consent. And even there the Court recognized that:
“[T]he double jeopardy guarantee serves principally as a restraint on courts and prosecutors. The legislature remains free under the Double Jeopardy Clause to define crimes and fix punishments; but once the legislature has acted courts may not impose more than one punishment for the same offense and prosecutors ordinarily may not attempt to secure that punishment in more than one trial.” 432 U. S., at 165 (footnote omitted).
Petitioners in this litigation were separately tried for two separate armed bank robberies, and were found guilty of both aggravated bank robbery in violation of 18 U. S. C. §§ 2113 (a) and (d), and of using firearms to commit the robbery in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 924 (c). In addition to imposing sentences on them authorized under the provisions of § 2113 (d), the court imposed additional sentences which it believed and I believe were clearly authorized by the language of § 924 (c). Certainly the language of the double jeopardy provision of the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits a person from being twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, has not the slightest application to this sort of criminal prosecution. It is only by an overly refined analysis, which first suggests that the double jeopardy prohibition encompasses enhancement of penalty for an offense for which there has been but one trial, and then concludes that the plain language of Congress providing for such enhancement shall not be read in that way in order to avoid this highly theoretical problem, that the Court is able to reach the result it does.
*20The language of § 924 (c), together with the circumstances surrounding its enactment, makes it abundantly clear to me that it was intended to authorize enhancement of punishment in these circumstances. I do not believe that Congressman PofFs statement on the floor of the House of Representatives is sufficient to overcome the meaning of this language, and I think that § 924 (c), so read, is clearly constitutional. I therefore dissent.