Rule of Lenity
Criminal defense attorneys should review the charges set forth in the indictment to determine if the statutes, alleged to criminalize the conduct of their clients, are ambiguous. Ambiguous statutes may present an opportunity for the lawyer and his client to argue the rule of lenity as part of the defense.
The United States Supreme Court discussed the rule of lenity in the context of a tax case in
United States v. Thompson/Center Arms Co., 504 U.S. 505 (1992).
The result was the elimination of the tax and the dismissal of the case.
JUSTICE SOUTER announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE O'CONNOR join.
Section 5821 of the National Firearms Act (NFA or Act), see 26 U. S. C. § 5849, levies a tax of $200 per unit upon anyone "making" a "firearm" as that term is defined in the Act. Neither pistols nor rifles with barrels 16 inches long or longer are firearms within the NFA definition, but rifles with barrels less than 16 inches long, known as short-barreled rifles, are. § 5845(a)(3).
This case presents the question whether a gun manufacturer "makes" a short-barreled rifle when it packages as a unit a pistol together with a kit containing a shoulder stock and a 21-inch barrel, permitting the pistol's conversion into an unregulated long-barreled rifle, or, if the pistol's barrel is left on the gun, a short-barreled rifle that is regulated. We hold that the statutory language may not be construed to require payment of the tax under these facts.
I. The Conflict in the Circuit Court Rulings
The word "firearm" is used as a term of art in the NFA. It means, among other things, "a rifle having a barrel or barrels of less than 16 inches in length . . . ." § 5845(a)(3). "The term 'rifle' means a weapon designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder and designed or redesigned and made or remade to use the energy of the explosive in a fixed cartridge to fire only a single projectile through a rifled bore for each single pull of the trigger, and shall include any such weapon which may be readily restored to fire a fixed cartridge." § 5845(c).
The consequence of being the maker of a firearm are serious. Section 5821(a) imposes a tax of $200 "for each firearm made," which "shall be paid by the person making the firearm," §5821(b). Before one may make a firearm, one must obtain the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, §5822, and §5841 requires that the "manufacturer, importer, and maker . . . register each firearm he manufactures, imports, or makes" in a central registry maintained by the Secretary of the Treasury. A maker who fails to comply with the NFA's provisions is subject to criminal penalties of up to 10 years' imprisonment and a fine of up to $ 10,000, or both, which may be imposed without proof of willfulness or knowledge. §5871.
Respondent Thompson/Center Arms Company manufactures a single-shot pistol called the "Contender," designed so that its handle and barrel can be removed from its "receiver," the metal frame housing the trigger, hammer, and firing mechanism. See 27 CFR § 179.11 (1991) (definition of frame or receiver).
For a short time in 1985, Thompson/Center also manufactured a carbine-conversion kit consisting of a 21-inch barrel, a rifle stock, and a wooden fore-end. If one joined the receiver with the conversion kit's rifle stock, the 21-inch barrel, and the rifle fore-end, the product is a carbine rifle with a 21-inch barrel. If, however, the shorter, pistollength barrel is not removed from the receiver when the rifle stock is added, one is left with a 10-inch or "short-barreled" carbine rifle. The entire conversion, from pistol to long-barreled rifle takes only a few minutes; conversion to a short-barreled rifle takes even less time.
In 1985, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms advised Thompson/Center that when its conversion kit was possessed or distributed together with the Contender pistol, the unit constituted a firearm subject to the NFA. Thompson/Center responded by paying the $200 tax for a single such firearm, and submitting an application for permission under 26 U. S. C. § 5822 "to make, use, and segregate as a single unit" a package consisting of a serially numbered pistol, together with an attachable shoulder stock and a 21-inch barrel.
Thompson/Center then filed a refund claim. After more than six months had elapsed without action on it, the company brought this suit in the United States Claims Court under the Tucker Act, 28 U. S. C. §1491, arguing that the unit registered was not a firearm within the meaning of the NFA because Thompson/Center had not assembled a short-barreled rifle from its components. The Claims Court entered summary judgment for the Government, concluding that the Contender pistol together with its conversion kit is a firearm within the meaning of the NFA. 19 Cl. Ct. 725 (1990).
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed, holding that a short-barreled rifle "actually must be assembled" in order to be "made" within the meaning of the NFA. 924 F.2d 1041, 1043 (1991). The Court of Appeals expressly declined to follow the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Drasen, 845 F.2d 731, cert. denied, 488 U.S. 909, 102 L. Ed. 2d 250, 109 S. Ct. 262 (1988), which had held that an unassembled "complete parts kit" for a short-barreled rifle was in fact a short-barreled rifle for purposes of the NFA.
The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve this conflict. 502 U.S. 807 (1991).
II The Ambiguity in the Law.
The NFA provides that "the term 'make', and the various derivatives of such word, shall include manufacturing (other than by one qualified to engage in such business under this chapter), putting together, altering, any combination of these, or otherwise producing a firearm." 26 U. S. C. § 5845(i). But the provision does not expressly address the question whether a short-barreled rifle can be "made" by the aggregation of finished parts that can readily be assembled into one. The Government contends that assembly is not necessary; Thompson/Center argues that it is.
A. The Accepted Definition.
The Government urges us to view the shipment of the pistol with the kit just as we would the shipment of a bicycle that requires some home assembly. "The fact that a short-barrel rifle, or any other 'firearm,' is possessed or sold in a partially unassembled state does not remove it from regulation under the Act."
The Government's analogy of the partially assembled bicycle to the packaged pistol and conversion kit is not, of course, exact. While each example includes some unassembled parts, the crated bicycle parts can be assembled into nothing but a bicycle, whereas the contents of Thompson/Center's package can constitute a pistol, a long-barreled rifle, or a short-barreled version. These distinctions, however, do define the issues raised by the Government's argument, the first of which is whether the aggregation and segregation of separate parts that can be assembled only into a short-barreled rifle and are sufficient for that purpose amount to "making" that firearm, or whether the firearm is not "made" until the moment of final assembly. This is the issue on which the Federal and Seventh Circuits are divided.
The Supreme Court stated that the language of the statute provides a clear answer on this point. The definition of "make" includes not only "putting together," but also "manufacturing . . . or otherwise producing a firearm." If as Thompson/Center submits, a firearm were only made at the time of final assembly (the moment the firearm was "put together"), the additional language would be redundant.
Congress must have understood "making" to cover more than final assembly, and some disassembled aggregation of parts must be included. Since the narrowest example of a combination of parts that might be included is a set of parts that could be used to make nothing but a short-barreled rifle, the aggregation of such a set of parts, at the very least, must fall within the definition of "making" such a rifle.
This is consistent with the holdings of every Court of Appeals, except the court below, to consider a combination of parts that could only be assembled into an NFA-regulated firearm, either under the definition of rifle at issue here or under similar statutory language. See United States v. Drasen, supra; United States v. Endicott, 803 F.2d 506, 508-509 (CA9 1986) (unassembled silencer is a silencer); United States v. Luce, 726 F.2d 47, 48-49 (CA1 1984) (same); United States v. Lauchli, 371 F.2d 303, 311-313 (CA7 1966) (unassembled machineguns are machineguns).
The Court rejected the broad language of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to the extent that it would mean that a disassembled complete short-barreled rifle kit must be assembled before it has been "made" into a short-barreled rifle. The fact that the statute would serve almost no purpose if this were the rule only confirms the reading the Court gave it.
The Court also thought that a firearm is "made" on facts one step removed from the paradigm of the aggregated parts that can be used for nothing except assembling a firearm. Two other courts have dealt in some way with claims that when a gun other than a firearm was placed together with a further part or parts that would have had no use in association with the gun except to convert it into a firearm, a firearm was produced. See United States v. Kokin, 365 F.2d 595, 596 (CA3) (carbine together with all parts necessary to convert it into a machinegun is a machinegun), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 987, 17 L. Ed. 2d 448, 87 S. Ct. 597 (1966); see also United States v. Zeidman, 444 F.2d 1051, 1053 (CA7 1971) (pistol and attachable shoulder stock found "in different drawers of the same dresser" constitute a short-barreled rifle).
Here it is true, of course, that some of the parts could be used without ever assembling a firearm, but the likelihood of that is belied by the utter uselessness of placing the converting parts with the others except for just such a conversion. Where the evidence in a given case supports a finding of such uselessness, the case falls within the fair intendment of "otherwise producing a firearm." See 26 U. S. C. § 5845(i).
B. Rule of Lenity.
Here, however, we are not dealing with an aggregation of parts that can serve no useful purpose except the assembly of a firearm, or with an aggregation having no ostensible utility except to convert a gun into such a weapon. There is, to be sure, one resemblance to the latter example in the sale of the Contender with the converter kit, for packaging the two has no apparent object except to convert the pistol into something else at some point. But the resemblance ends with the fact that the unregulated Contender pistol can be converted not only into a short-barreled rifle, which is a regulated firearm, but also into a long-barreled rifle, which is not. The packaging of pistol and kit has an obvious utility for those who want both a pistol and a regular rifle, and the question is whether the mere possibility of their use to assemble a regulated firearm is enough to place their combined packaging within the scope of "making" one. * * *
Neither the statute's language nor its structure provides any definitive guidance. * * *
Thompson/Center also looks for the answer in the purpose and history of the NFA, arguing that the congressional purpose behind the NFA, of regulating weapons useful for criminal purposes, should caution against drawing the line in such a way as to apply the Act to the Contender pistol and carbine kit. See H. R. Rep. No. 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., A395 (1954) (the adoption of the original definition of rifle was intended to preclude coverage of antique guns held by collectors, "in pursuance of the clearly indicated congressional intent to cover under the National Firearms Act only such modern and lethal weapons, except pistols and revolvers, as could be used readily and efficiently by criminals or gangsters").
It is of course clear from the face of the Act that the NFA's object was to regulate certain weapons likely to be used for criminal purposes, just as the regulation of short-barreled rifles, for example, addresses a concealable weapon likely to be so used. But when Thompson/Center urges us to recognize that "the Contender pistol and carbine kit is not a criminal-type weapon," it does not really address the issue of where the line should be drawn in deciding what combinations of parts are "made" into short-barreled rifles. Its argument goes to the quite different issue whether the single-shot Contender should be treated as a firearm within the meaning of the Act even when assembled with a rifle stock.
Since Thompson/Center's observations on this extraneous issue shed no light on the limits of unassembled "making" under the Act, we will say no more about congressional purpose. Nor are we helped by the NFA's legislative history, in which we find nothing to support a conclusion one way or the other about the narrow issue presented here.
III. Rules of Statutory Construction.
After applying the ordinary rules of statutory construction, then, we are left with an ambiguous statute. The key to resolving the ambiguity lies in recognizing that although it is a tax statute that we construe now in a civil setting, the NFA has criminal applications that carry no additional requirement of willfulness. Cf. Cheek v. United [**2110] States, 498 U.S. 192, 200, 112 L. Ed. 2d 617, 111 S. Ct. 604 (1991) ("Congress has . . . softened the impact of the common-law presumption [that ignorance of the law is no defense to criminal prosecution] by making specific intent to violate the law an element of certain federal criminal tax offenses"); 26 U. S. C. §§ 7201, 7203 (criminalizing willful evasion of taxes and willful failure to file a return).
Making a firearm without approval may be subject to criminal sanction, as is possession of an unregistered firearm and failure to pay the tax on one, 26 U. S. C. §§ 5861, 5871. It is proper, therefore, to apply the rule of lenity and resolve the ambiguity in Thompson/Center's favor. See Crandon v. United States, 494 U.S. 152, 168, 108 L. Ed. 2d 132, 110 S. Ct. 997 (1990) (applying lenity in interpreting a criminal statute invoked in a civil action); Commissioner v. Acker, 361 U.S. 87, 91, 4 L. Ed. 2d 127, 80 S. Ct. 144 (1959). 9Link to the text of the note. Accordingly, we conclude that the Contender pistol and carbine kit when packaged together by Thompson/Center have not been "made" into a short-barreled rifle for purposes of the NFA.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore Affirmed.
Concur by: SCALIA
JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins, concurring in the judgment.
I agree with the plurality that the application of the National Firearms Act (NFA) to Thompson/Center's pistol and conversion kit is sufficiently ambiguous to trigger the rule of lenity, leading to the conclusion that the kit is not covered.
I disagree with the plurality, however, over where the ambiguity lies -- a point that makes no difference to the outcome here, but will make considerable difference in future cases. The plurality thinks the ambiguity pertains to whether the making of a regulated firearm includes (i) the manufacture of parts kits that can possibly be used to assemble a regulated firearm, or rather includes only (ii) the manufacture of parts kits that serve no useful purpose except assembly of a regulated firearm. I think the ambiguity pertains to the much more fundamental point of whether the making of a regulated firearm includes the manufacture, without assembly, of component parts where the definition of the particular firearm does not so indicate.
As JUSTICE WHITE points out, the choice the plurality worries about is nowhere suggested by the language of the statute: § 5845 simply makes no reference to the "'utility'" of aggregable parts. It does, however, conspicuously combine references to "combination of parts" in the definitions of regulated silencers, machineguns, and destructive devices with the absence of any such reference in the definition of regulated rifles. This, rather than the utility or not of a given part in a given parts assemblage, convinces me that the provision does not encompass Thompson/Center's pistol and conversion kit, or at least does not do so unambiguously.
The plurality reaches its textually uncharted destination by determining that the statutory definition of "make," the derivative of which appears as an operative word in 26 U. S. C. § 5821 ("There shall be levied, collected, and paid upon the making of a firearm a tax at the rate of $200 for each firearm made"), covers the making of parts that, assembled, are firearms. Noting that the "definition of 'make' includes not only 'putting together,' but also 'manufacturing . . . or otherwise producing a firearm,'" the plurality reasons that if "a firearm were only made at the time of final assembly (the moment the firearm was 'put together'), the additional language would be redundant."
This reasoning seems to me mistaken. I do not think that if "making" requires "putting together," other language of the definition section ("manufacturing" and "otherwise producing") becomes redundant. "Manufacturing" is qualified by the parenthetical phrase "(other than by one qualified to engage in such business under this chapter)," whereas "putting together" is not. Thus, one who assembles a firearm and also engages in the prior activity of producing the component parts can be immunized from being considered to be making firearms by demonstrating the relevant qualification, whereas one who merely assembles parts manufactured by others cannot.
Recognition of this distinction is alone enough to explain the separate inclusion of "putting together," even though "manufacturing" itself includes assembly. As for the phrase "otherwise producing," that may well be redundant, but such residual provisions often are. They are often meant for insurance, to cover anything the draftsman might inadvertently have omitted in the antecedent catalog; and if the draftsman is good enough, he will have omitted nothing at all. They are a prime example of provisions in which "iteration is obviously afoot," Moskal v. United States, 498 U.S. 103, 120, 112 L. Ed. 2d 449, 111 S. Ct. 461 (1990) (SCALIA, J., dissenting), and for which an inflexible rule of avoiding redundancy will produce disaster.
In any event, the plurality's own interpretation (whereby "manufacturing" a firearm does not require assembling it, and "putting together" is an entirely separate category of "making") renders it not a bit easier to conceive of a nonredundant application for "otherwise producing."
* * *
Dissenting JUSTICE WHITE, JUSTICE BLACKMUN, JUSTICE STEVENS, and JUSTICE KENNEDY.
