Court Opinion

ID: 9627063
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:32:37.476683+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:27:10.064114
License: Public Domain

BYBEE, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
This case surely proves Justice Johnson’s maxim: “One half the doubts in life arise from the defects of language.” Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 1, 232, 6 L.Ed. 23 (1824). I agree with much that the majority has written.1 I agree, for example, that 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(l) is capable of multiple, reasonable interpretations. I further agree that the legislative history provides few clues for resolving the ambiguity. Compare United States v. Villanueva-Sotelo, 515 F.3d 1234, 1243-46 (D.C.Cir.2008) with id at 1252-55 (Henderson, J., dissenting). If I stopped reading the statute where the majority did, I would agree that the rule of lenity applies and I would join the opinion in full. I dissent from parts II.A and II.C. of the majority opinion to point out a. logical conundrum, one that I think has been overlooked in the discussions thus far.
I
I find the statutes maddeningly difficult to deal with. The statute at issue here, 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(l), reads in full:
*1042Whoever, during and in relation to any felony violation enumerated in subsection (c), knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such felony, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 2 years.
For reasons well explained, the majority reads this provision as if it read:
Whoever, during and in relation to any felony violation enumerated in subsection (c), knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification knowing that it belongs to another person shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such felony, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 2 years.
So far, so good. I think that this is a reasonable reading of § 1028A(a)(l), read in isolation. See United States v. Williams, — U.S. -, 128 S.Ct. 1830, 1839, 170 L.Ed.2d 650 (2008) (applying “knowingly” to every element of a statute because there was no indication that “grammar or structure enable[d] the challenged provision or some of its parts to be read apart from the ‘knowingly’ requirement.”)
Here is the problem. At the same time that Congress adopted § 1028A(a)(l), which addresses aggravated identity theft in general, it also adopted § 1028A(a)(2), which addresses aggravated identity theft in the context of a terrorism offense. That section provides in full:
Whoever, during and in relation to any felony violation enumerated in section 2332b(g)(5)(B), knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person or a false identification document shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such felony, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 5 years.
18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(2). In form, subsections (a)(1) and (a)(2) are identical. After today’s decision, we must read the two consistently. That is, we must also read § 1028A(a)(2) as if it read:
Whoever, during and in relation to any felony violation enumerated in section 2332b(g)(5)(B), knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification knowing that it belongs to another person or is a false identification document shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such felony, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 5 years.
When read into this provision, however, the phrase “knowing that it belongs to” is superfluous. A person who knowingly transfers a means of identification without lawful authority must necessarily know that the identification either belongs to another person or that it is false; there are no other choices. It makes no sense to read into subsection (a)(2) the second “knowing.” It is, at the least, unnecessary and perhaps absurd.2 If subsection (a)(2) ought not be read in this way, it is not clear why we must read subsection (a)(1) in this way either.
The majority opinion in Villanueva-Sotelo, addressed § 1028A(a)(2), but I do not find its discussion persuasive. First, the majority noted that “[t]he government con*1043cedes that section 1028A(a)(2)’s knowledge requirement must apply to the whole phrase ‘false identification document.’ ” 515 F.3d at 1239. The majority then reasoned that “if ‘knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses’ acts upon the direct object and its modifiers in subsection (a)(2), we think it quite reasonable to conclude that it could do the same in subsection (a)(1).” Id. at 1240. The majority’s conclusion may follow from its premises, but we have no indication that the government has “concede[d]” any such thing about § 1028A(a)(2). Cf. United States v. Estrada-Sanchez, 558 F.Supp.2d 129, 136, n. 7, 2008 WL 2315733, at *5 n. 7 (D.Me.2008).
The Villanueva-Sotelo majority returned to § 1028A(a)(2) later in its opinion, but again I do not find its reasoning persuasive. It observed that subsection (a)(2) adds a phrase — “or a false identification document” — not found in subsection (a)(1). 515 F.3d at 1248. It then found that “[h]ad Congress parroted subsection (a)(2)’s ‘false identification document’ language in subsection (a)(1), Villanueva-So-telo’s guilt would be plain.... We see no reason to read subsection (a)(2)’s language into subsection (a)(1) when Congress clearly could have placed it there itself.” Id. at 1249.
With all due respect to our colleagues on the D.C. Circuit, they have it exactly backwards. Of course, there is no reason to read the phrase “or a false identification document” found in (a)(2) into (a)(1); that would be an obvious amendment of the statute. But the majority has seemingly uncovered the logical conundrum I identified above; it simply took the wrong inference from it. My point is not that we should read language that Congress added in subsection (a)(2) into (a)(1). That is, I am not suggesting that we need to add to the actus reus of § 1028A(a)(l) that an individual has violated that section if the means of identification he knowingly uses is in fact a false document. Rather, my point is that we should not read mens rea language that is inconsistent with subsection (a)(2) into an identical and contemporaneously-adopted subsection (a)(1). That is precisely what the D.C. Circuit and the majority have done: They have read into § 1028A(a)(l) a second “knowing” requirement, and such a requirement cannot peaceably be read into the nearly identical subsequent subsection.
II
I also wish to explain briefly why the statute at issue in this case is distinguishable from the statutes the Supreme Court parsed in Liparota v. United States, 471 U.S. 419, 105 S.Ct. 2084, 85 L.Ed.2d 434 (1985), and United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U.S. 64, 115 S.Ct. 464, 130 L.Ed.2d 372 (1994). In Liparota, the statute punished “whoever knowingly uses, transfers, acquires, alters, or possesses coupons or authorization cards in any manner not authorized by [the statute] or. the regulations.” 471 U.S. at 420 n. 1, 105 S.Ct. 2084 (quoting 7 U.S.C. § 2024(b)(1)). The petitioner in the case argued that adopting an interpretation of the statute that did not read the mens rea requirement as applying to the second part of the sentence, would dispense with “the only morally blameworthy element in the definition of the crime.” Id. at 423, 105 S.Ct. 2084. The Supreme Court agreed and explained that its interpretation was in part driven by the fact that “to interpret the statute otherwise would be to criminalize a broad range of apparently innocent conduct.” Id. at 426, 105 S.Ct. 2084. The Court noted that a strict reading of the “knowledge” requirement would mean that an individual who was mistakenly sent food stamps through the mail, or an individual who purchased food from a store that charged higher than normal prices to food stamp program participants would be in *1044violation of the statute. Id. at 426-27, 105 S.Ct. 2084.
Similarly, in X-Citement Video, the statute penalized “[a]ny person who ... knowingly transports ... any visual depiction, if ... the producing of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.” 513 U.S. at 68, 115 S.Ct. 464 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(1)(A)). The Court held that in that case the “knowingly” mens rea requirement extended to “the use of a minor” and therefore required knowledge of the age of the performers. Id. at 78, 115 S.Ct. 464. Underlying the Supreme Court’s reasoning is a concern that to read the statute otherwise would capture “actors who had no idea that they were even dealing with sexually explicit material.” Id. at 69, 115 S.Ct. 464. Thus, motivating both Supreme Court cases is an assumption that Congress did not intend to criminalize conduct that we regard as morally innocent.
We have no similar concern with respect to the statute at issue in this case. This case does not address whether § 1028A(a)(l) requires knowledge that the identification is being transferred, possessed or used without lawful authority. Were that portion of the statute contested in this case, then the Supreme Court’s precedents would directly apply because the criminalization of morally innocent conduct would be at stake. Here, reading § 1028A(a)(l) without requiring knowledge that the identification belongs to another person would only criminalize the following scenarios: 1) a person knowingly uses without lawful authority a means of identification of another person knowing that it belongs to another person; 2) a person knowingly uses without lawful authority a means of identification believing it to be a false identification document, whereas in actuality it belongs to another person; and, 3) a person knowingly uses without lawful authority a means of identification not knowing or caring whether it is a false identification document or a means of identification of another person, and in actuality it belongs to another person. None of those scenarios involve criminalizing innocent behavior, and therefore we need not assume that Congress could not have intended to criminalize such conduct.
Ill
These are difficult statutes to parse. I would hold, consistent with the Fourth, Eighth, and Eleventh Circuits, that a person violates 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(l) if he knowingly transfers, possesses or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification that belongs to another person, even if the government cannot prove that he had actual knowledge that the identification belonged to another person. Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the district court.
I respectfully dissent.

. I agree that the district court did not commit plain error when it repeated the statutory language in the jury instruction in light of the fact that our court had never resolved this statutory conundrum, and there was a circuit split on the issue. I therefore concur in Part II.B of the majority opinion.

. The majority attempts to minimize the significance of this absurdity by observing that the entire phrase “of another person or a false identification document’’ could be removed from § 1028A(a)(2). Maj. Op. 1039-40. While this may be true in isolation, as the majority points out, the phrase was probably included to distinguish this provision from the preceding one, which applies only to the use of another’s identification, and not a “false identification.” Maj. Op. 1040 n. 5. The fact that Congress included one superfluous phrase for an obvious reason, does not mean that we should read a second one into the statute as well.