Court Opinion

ID: 9418950
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:43:38.084219+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:13.424899
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Sutherland,
dissenting.
Mr. Justice McReynolds, Mr. Justice Butler and I have reached a different conclusion.
The judicial function, as many times we have been told, does not include the power to amend a statute. And *553while penal statutes are not to be construed so strictly as to defeat the obvious intention of the lawmaker, nevertheless — “Before one may be punished, it must appear that his case is plainly within the statute; there are no constructive offenses.” United States v. Resnick, 299 U. S. 207, 210.
We think the opinion just handed down, undertakes to import a meaning into the pertinent statute at war with its words. That statute requires the existence of four distinct elements before the accused can be held guilty of violating it: (1) the adoption by the Secretary of a distinctive paper for the obligations and other securities of the United States; (2) possession or retention by the accused of “similar paper”; (3) the paper to be “adapted to the making of any such obligation or other security”; and (4) the possession, or retention not to be under the authority of the Secretary of the Treasury or some other proper officer of the United States.
The word “similar,” it is true, generally indicates resemblance and not exact identity, although in some cases it may mean “identical” or “exactly like.” Fletcher v. Interstate Chemical Co., 94 N. J. L. 332, 334; 110 Atl. 709. The distinction is illustrated by the decision of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in Commonwealth v. Fontain, 127 Mass. 452, 454, where it was held that the words “similar offense” meant an offense identical in kind. The court said, “The word 'similar’ is often used to denote a partial resemblance only. But it is also often used to denote sameness in all essential particulars. We think the Legislature intended to use it in the latter sense in the statute we are considering.” To determine the precise meaning of the word here, we must turn to the statute. The crucial elements there disclosed are those embraced by clause (2), requiring that the paper possessed or retained be “similar paper” *554to that adopted by the Secretary, and by clause (3) which requires that the paper be adapted to the making of “such” obligation or security. It is as necessary to give appropriate effect to the latter clause as it is to the former. It is not enough that the paper would be “similar” paper within the meaning of clause (2) standing alone; for it does not stand alone, but is associated with and qualified by clause (3). Nothing is better settled in the law of statutory construction than the rule that words by themselves may have a particular meaning, but that this meaning may be enlarged or restricted when considered in connection with other associated words. And this is more especially true where the associated words supplement and qualify the preceding ones as they do here.
In order to apply the rule, we must ascertain the meaning of clause (3), since that adds the requirement that the similar paper shall be adapted to the making of “such” obligation or security. That is to say, we first must determine the import of the word “such”; and) that is disclosed by clause (1), providing for the adoption of distinctive paper for the obligations and securities of the United States. This means, and can only mean, genuine obligations and securities, since it cannot be supposed either that the Secretary, by clause (1), is authorized to adopt paper for any that are not genuine, or that his authority under clause (4) is not alone to permit possession of paper adapted to making genuine obligations but extends to paper which resembles the adopted paper only enough to make it adaptable for counterfeiting those obligations. It follows, necessarily, that it is genuine obligations and securities and not counterfeits of them that are embraced by the word “such” in clause (3).
The provisions of the statute were not meant to cover counterfeiting, or preparations antecedent to counterfeiting. Their whole purpose was to penalize possession or *555retention by unauthorized persons of the distinctive kind of paper which the Secretary has adopted for the making of the obligations of the United States; language which, as we have said, necessarily imports genuine obligations, because if not genuine they would not be obligations of the United States at all.
The government, however, takes the view that the statute extends to the possession of paper suitable, not for making genuine obligations, but for counterfeiting them. And this view, as we understand it, is also taken by the court in its present opinion. The difficulty with that view, however, is that it requires the introduction of an amendment so that clause (3), instead of reading “adapted to the making of any such obligation,” etc., will read “adapted to the making of counterfeits of any such obligation,” etc. Such an assumption of legislative power is inadmissible.
That the paper here in question, even if in the hands of the Treasury, was not adapted to the making of genuine obligations, is beyond dispute. The distinctive feature of the paper adopted by the Secretary is the presence of short, fine red-and-blue silk fibers impregnated in and distributed throughout a high-grade rag bond paper. These silk fibers are entirely absent from the paper here in question; and while it might have been used for counterfeiting government obligations, it was not adapted to making the genuine articles. The present decision brings within the reach of the statute every stationer who has in his possession for sale any high-grade rag bond paper, if it is capable of being used for counterfeiting government obligations. For the statute, it will be observed, requires no criminal intent, and nothing beyond mere possession or retention.
The view of the statute which we have expressed was adopted thirty years ago by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Krakowski v. United States, *556161 Fed. 88. In the meantime, Congress has left the statute in its original form. The government did not see fit to ask review of the Krakowski case, but has apparently acquiesced in it for all those years. This court should not be expected to disregard the established rules of statutory construction in order to remedy a situation which Congress could have cured, and may still cure, by a simple act of legislation. We think the well-reasoned opinion of the court below should be accepted and its judgment affirmed.