Court Opinion

ID: 9498793
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:28:04.800162+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:04.252331
License: Public Domain

STAPLETON, Circuit Judge.
I agree with my colleagues that the Sentencing Commission intended the degree of punishment in situations of this kind to turn on what the defendant received that he was not entitled to receive rather than on the size of the transaction itself. Ironically, however, the Court’s opinion, while giving effect to this judgment of the Commission, refuses to acknowledge an identical judgment of Congress reflected in a literal reading of the text of § 1920. For this reason, I respectfully dissent.
Section 1920 provides as follows:
Whoever knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals, or covers up a material fact, or makes a false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation, or makes or uses a false statement or report knowing the same to contain any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry in connection with the application for or receipt of compensation or other benefit or payment under sub-chapter I or III of chapter 81 of title 5, shall be guilty of perjury, and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine under this title, or by imprisonment for not more than 5 years, or both; but if the amount of the benefits falsely obtained does not exceed $1,000, such person shall be punished by a fine under this title, or by imprisonment for not more than 1 year, or both.
18 U.S.C. § 1920.
Insofar as here relevant, the District Court read § 1920 to provide that “whoever knowingly and willfully ... makes a false statement ... in connection with the application for or receipt of compensation or other benefit or payment shall be guilty of perjury and ... shall be punished by a fine ... or- imprisonment for not more than 5 years, or both, ... but if the *158amount of the benefits ... obtained does not exceed $1,000, such person shall be punished by a fine ... or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both.”
Congress could have enacted a coherent statute so providing, but it did not. Section 1920, as enacted by Congress, criminalizes precisely the conduct the District Court read it to criminalize, but when it came to punishment Congress did not make the degree of punishment turn on “the amount of the benefits obtained.” Congress rather provided that the degree of punishment would turn on the quantum of wrongful conduct rather than the extent of the defendant’s dependence on the government, i.e., on “the amount of the benefits falsely obtained.” 18 U.S.C. § 1920 (emphasis supplied).9
The District Court interpretation reads out of the statute entirely the word “falsely,” thereby violating the rule of construction that no statutory text should be ignored as surplusage unless there is no other reasonable alternative. See Bailey v. United States, 516 U.S. 137, 146, 116 S.Ct. 501, 133 L.Ed.2d 472 (1995) (employing the canon to reject an interpretation of a criminal statute because “[njothing here indicates that Congress, when it provided these two [different] terms, intended that they be understood to be redundant. We assume that Congress .used two terms because it intended each term to have a particular, nonsuperfluous meaning.”); United States v. Cooper, 396 F.3d 308 (3d Cir.2005) (quoting TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U.S. 19, 31, 122 S.Ct. 441, 151 L.Ed.2d 339 (2001), for the proposition that “a statute ought, upon the whole, to be so construed that, if it can be prevented, no clause, sentence, or word shall be superfluous, void, or insignificant”). Here, the literal reading of the entire statute as written produces an eminently reasonable result. Indeed, I regard it as far more likely that Congress intended the punishment to turn on how much the defendant received that he was not entitled to rather than the size of the transaction itself. As I have indicated, this is precisely the same judgment reached by the Sentencing Commission as a result of its deliberations. See U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1, Application Notes § 3.(F)(ii) (For example, “if the defendant was the intended recipient of food stamps having a value of $100 but fraudulently received food stamps having a value of $150, loss is $50” for enhancement purposes.). In short, I would hold that § 1920 means what it literally says.
Even if it could be said that § 1920 was ambiguous, however, I would consider myself bound by the rule of lenity to construe the statute in a manner that would produce the lighter sentence in those cases where the two readings would produce different results. United States v. $731,578.82 in U.S. Currency, 286 F.3d 641, 657 (3d Cir.2002) (“[W]here a statute is punitive in nature, the rule of lenity requires that any ambiguity in the statute be resolved in favor of the claimant.”); United States v. Fenton, 309 F.3d 825, 828 n. 3 (3d Cir.2002) (“[W]here ... the [Sen*159tencing] Guidelines do not clearly call for enhancement, the rule of lenity should prevent the application of a significantly increased sentence.”).
Because there was no determination by the jury as to whether “the amount of the benefits falsely obtained” by Tupone exceeded $1,000 and because there was testimony from Tupone on the basis of which a juror might have a reasonable doubt about whether that was the case, I would remand with instructions that Tupone should be resentenced to no more than a fine or imprisonment of one year, or both.

. It is, of course, true that the "overall ‘design’ and 'object' of § 1920 is to criminalize the making of false statements in the application and receipt of government benefits” and the judge’s instructions to the jury would have been entirely appropriate prior to the age of Apprendi. Op. at 150. I fail to perceive, however, how this "militates in favor of the District Court’s reading of the statute.” Id. The statute was enacted prior to Apprendi, and in that context, the relevant text clearly related only to the Court's sentencing decision. If that text had referred to "benefits obtained,” the statute could fairly be read to limit the judge's punishment discretion by a reference back to "compensation, or other benefit or payment.” Congress chose, however, to limit punishment in accordance with the amount of "benefits falsely obtained.”