Hughey v. United States

Decision Date21 May 1990
Docket NumberNo. 89-5691,89-5691
Citation495 U.S. 411,109 L.Ed.2d 408,110 S.Ct. 1979
PartiesFrasiel L. HUGHEY, Petitioner v. UNITED STATES
CourtU.S. Supreme Court
Syllabus

Pursuant to a plea agreement, petitioner Hughey pleaded guilty to using one unauthorized MBank credit card. Under the restitution provisions of the Victim and Witness Protection Act of 1982 (VWPA)—which authorize federal courts to order "a defendant convicted of an offense" to "make restitution to any victim of such offense," 18 U.S.C. § 3579(a)(1) (1982 ed., Supp. IV)—the District Court ordered Hughey to pay $90,431 in restitution, the total of MBank's losses relating to his alleged theft and use of 21 cards from various MBank cardholders. Denying Hughey's motion to reduce and correct his sentence, the court rejected his argument that it had exceeded its authority in ordering restitution for offenses other than the offense of conviction. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

Held: A VWPA restitution award is authorized only for the loss caused by the specific conduct that is the basis of the offense of conviction. Pp. 415-422.

(a) VWPA's plain language clearly links restitution to the offense of conviction. Given that the ordinary meaning of "restitution" is restoring someone to a position he occupied before a particular event, § 3579's repeated focus on the offense of conviction suggests strongly that restitution is intended to compensate victims only for losses caused by the conduct underlying the offense of conviction. The Government's view that § 3579(a) merely identifies the victim, but that the restitution amount is calculated in accordance with § 3580(a)—which delineates "[p]rocedure[s] for issuing" restitution orders—is unconvincing. Section 3579(b), by giving detailed substantive guidance regarding the calculation of restitution, establishes the amount of restitution that courts can award. In addition, to regard § 3580 rather than § 3579 as fixing the substantive boundaries of such orders would ignore this Court's commitment to "giving effect to the meaning and placement of the words chosen by Congress." Adams Fruit Co. v. Barrett, 494 U.S. 638, 645, 110 S.Ct. 1384, 1388, 108 L.Ed.2d 585. More significantly, because a general statutory term should be understood in light of the specific terms that surround it, § 3580(a)'s catchall phrase—which directs courts to consider "such other factors as the court deems appropriate" in calculating the amount of restitution—should not be read to introduce into the calculus losses that would expand a defendant's liability beyond the offense of conviction. That phrase is preceded by more specific considerations for determining whether to order, and the amount of, restitution, all of which are designed to limit, rather than to expand, the scope of any restitution order. Pp. 415-420.

(b) Any policy questions surrounding VWPA's offense-of-conviction limitation on restitution orders need not be resolved. Even were the statutory language ambiguous, longstanding principles of lenity preclude the resolution of the ambiguity against Hughey on the basis of general declarations of policy in the statute and legislative history. Pp. 420-422.

877 F.2d 1256 (CA5 1989), reversed and remanded.

MARSHALL, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and BRENNAN, BLACKMUN, STEVENS, O'CONNOR, and SCALIA, JJ., joined, and in which WHITE and KENNEDY, JJ., joined except as to Part II-C.

Lucien B. Campbell, San Antonio, Tex., for petitioner.

Amy L. Wax, Silver Spring, Md., for respondent, pro hac vice by special leave of Court.

Justice MARSHALL delivered the opinion of the Court.

The restitution provisions of the Victim and Witness Protection Act of 1982 (VWPA), 18 U.S.C. §§ 3579, 3580 (1982 ed. and Supp. IV), authorize federal courts, when sentencing defendants convicted of certain offenses, to order, "in addition to or in lieu of any other penalty authorized by law, that the defendant make restitution to any victim of such offense." 18 U.S.C. § 3579(a)(1) (1982 ed., Supp. IV). We must decide whether these provisions allow a court to order a defendant who is charged with multiple offenses but who is con-

Justice WHITE and Justice KENNEDY join all but Part II-C of this opinion victed of only one offense to make restitution for losses related to the other alleged offenses. We hold that the language and structure of the Act make plain Congress' intent to authorize an award of restitution only for the loss caused by the specific conduct that is the basis of the offense of conviction.1

I

In 1986, petitioner Frasiel L. Hughey was indicted for three counts of theft by a United States Postal Service employee and three counts of use of unauthorized credit cards. Petitioner pleaded guilty to count 4 of the indictment in exchange for the Government's agreement to dismiss the remaining counts and to forgo prosecution "for any other offense arising in the Western District of Texas as part of the scheme alleged in the indictment." App. 7. Count 4 charged "[t]hat on or about October 18, 1985, . . . [petitioner] did knowingly and with intent to defraud use an unauthorized [MBank Mastercard credit card] issued to Hershey Godfrey, . . . and by such conduct did obtain things of value aggregating more than $1,000. . . ." Id., at 5. During the plea proceeding and as part of the factual basis of petitioner's plea, the Government proffered evidence that petitioner had stolen not only Godfrey's card, but also at least 15 other cards. Id., at 10. Petitioner's counsel informed the court at that time that petitioner's plea was confined to the allegations in count 4 and that petitioner did "not mak[e] admissions to anything other than the facts pertaining to count four." Id., at 11.

After the plea hearing but before sentencing, the Government notified petitioner that it would propose that he be ordered to pay restitution of $147,646.89. The Government calculated that figure by adding the losses of several financial institutions, including MBank, that resulted from petitioner's alleged theft and use of approximately 30 credit cards. Petitioner objected to the proposed restitution order on the ground that the proposed figure was unauthorized because it "exceed[ed] the losses of any victims of the offense of which the Defendant was convicted." Id., at 13. The Government then submitted a revised restitution figure of $90,431, the total of MBank's losses relating to petitioner's alleged theft and use of 21 cards from various MBank cardholders. Petitioner countered that the appropriate restitution figure should be $10,412, the losses MBank sustained as a result of all unauthorized uses of the Godfrey credit card identified in the count for which he was convicted.

The District Court ordered petitioner to make restitution to MBank in the amount of $90,431. Id., at 78. Petitioner moved to reduce and correct his sentence under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 35, arguing that the District Court had exceeded its authority in ordering restitution for offenses other than the offense of conviction. The District Court denied the motion. Id., at 82-85. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that "VWPA permits a court to require restitution beyond that amount involved in the offense of conviction when there is a significant connection between the crime of conviction and similar actions justifying restitution." 877 F.2d 1256, 1264 (1989).

The courts of appeals have reached varying conclusions regarding a court's ability under VWPA to require an offender to pay restitution for acts other than those underlying the offense of conviction.2 We granted certiorari to resolve this split in authority. 493 U.S. 1018, 110 S.Ct. 716, 107 L.Ed.2d 736 (1990).

II
A.

As in all cases involving statutory interpretation, we look first to the language of the statute itself. Landreth Timber Co. v. Landreth, 471 U.S. 681, 685, 105 S.Ct. 2297, 2301, 85 L.Ed.2d 692 (1985). Title 18 U.S.C. § 3579(a)(1) (1982 ed., Supp. IV) provides that "a defendant convicted of an offense" may be ordered to "make restitution to any victim of such offense." Other subsections of § 3579 likewise link restitution to the offense of conviction. See § 3579(b)(1) (listing damages recoverable "in the case of an offense resulting in damage to or loss or destruction of property of a victim of the offense"); § 3579(b)(2) (listing damages recoverable "in the case of an offense resulting in bodily injury to a victim"); § 3579(b)(3) (listing damages recoverable "in the case of an offense resulting in bodily injury [that] also results in the death of a victim"). As the Government concedes, Brief for United States 14, a straight-forward reading of the provisions indicates that the referent of "such offense" and "an offense" is the offense of conviction. Given that the ordinary meaning of "restitution" is restoring someone to a position he occupied before a particular event, see, e.g., Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1936 (1986); Black's Law Dictionary 1180 (5th ed.1979), the repeated focus in § 3579 on the offense of which the defendant was convicted suggests strongly that restitution as authorized by the statute is intended to compensate victims only for losses caused by the conduct underlying the offense of conviction.

The Government argues, however, that § 3579 answers only the question of who may receive restitution and offers no guidance as to how much restitution a court may order the defendant to pay. In the Government's view, § 3579(a) indicates merely that to receive restitution, a victim must be a victim of the offense of conviction. Once such a victim is identified, the Government maintains, the amount of restitution is calculated in accordance with 18 U.S.C. § 3580(a) (1982 ed.), which provides:

"The court, in determining whether to order restitution under section 3579 of this title and the amount of such restitution, shall consider the amount of...

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