Page:Dubin v. United States.pdf/16

12 course … Congress, like ‘Humpty Dumpty,’ has the power to give words unorthodox meanings.” Id., at 575. Yet where “the Government argues for a result that the English language tells us not to expect, … we must be very wary of the Government’s position.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted).

The title suggests identity theft is at the core of §1028A(a)(1). On the Government’s reading, however, everyday overbilling would become the most common trigger for §1028A(a)(1)’s severe penalty. This would turn the core of “worse or more serious” identity theft into something the ordinary user of the English language would not consider identity theft at all.

The title is, by definition, just the beginning. A title does not supplant the actual text of the provision, as the Government observes. The problem for the Government is that §1028A(a)(1)’s language points in the same direction as its title. In particular, Congress used a trio of verbs that reflect an ordinary understanding of identity theft.

While “uses” is indeterminate in isolation, here it has company. Section 1028A(a)(1) applies when a defendant “knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person,” “during and in relation to” any predicate offense. (Emphasis added.) “Under the familiar interpretive canon noscitur a sociis, ‘a word is known by the company it keeps.’ ” McDonnell v. United States, 579 U. S. 550, 568–569 (2016) (quoting Jarecki v. G. D. Searle & Co., 367 U. S. 303, 307 (1961)). “[T]his canon is often wisely applied where a word is capable of many meanings in order to avoid the giving of unintended breadth to the Acts of Congress.” McDonnell, 579 U. S., at 569 (internal quotation marks omitted).

The two neighboring verbs here, “transfers” and “possesses,” are most naturally read in the context of