Page:Dubin v. United States.pdf/9

Rh a predicate offense requires “a genuine nexus to the predicate offense.” Brief for Petitioner 15. On this reading, the means of identification is at the crux of what makes the predicate offense criminal, rather than merely an ancillary feature of a payment method. When the underlying crime involves fraud or deceit, as many of §1028A’s predicates do, this entails using a means of identification specifically in a fraudulent or deceitful manner.

To illustrate, petitioner borrows a heuristic from the Sixth Circuit. See Michael, 882 F. 3d, at 628. The relevant language in §1028A(a)(1) “covers misrepresenting who received a certain service,” but not “fraudulent claims regarding how or when a service was performed.” Brief for Petitioner 15. In other words, fraud going to identity, not misrepresentation about services actually provided. Take an ambulance service that actually transported patients but inflated the number of miles driven. The crux of this fraud was “how” services were rendered; the patients’ names were part of the billing process, but ancillary to what made the conduct fraudulent. See Michael, 882 F. 3d, at 628–629. In contrast, take the pharmacist who swipes information from the pharmacy’s files and uses it to open a bank account in a patient’s name. That “misuse of th[e] means of identification” would be “integral to” what made the conduct fraudulent, because misrepresentation about who was involved was at the crux of the fraud. Id., at 629.

In deciding between the parties’ readings, one limited and one near limitless, precedent and prudence require a careful examination of §1028A(a)(1)’s text and structure. While “uses” and “in relation to” are, in isolation, indeterminate, the statutory context, taken as a whole, points to a narrower reading.

In interpreting the scope of “uses” and “in relation to,” the Court begins with those terms themselves. Both terms