noting that reading section 17 as “coextensive with the grant of substantive rights [in section 16] best promotes the statutory purpose of protecting those rights”
How later courts described this case
- noting that reading section 17 as “coextensive with the grant of substantive rights [in section 16] best promotes the statutory purpose of protecting those rights”
- "The message of this case is clear. So long as the American flag flies over the United States courthouses, the federal courts and the federal justice system stand as bulwarks to assure that every human being within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be treated humanely and dealt with in accordance with due process of law by those entrusted with the power to enforce the law.”
- “Section 16 grants these rights, and section 17 enforces that grant by criminalizing their deprivation.”
- "the rule of lenity ... cannot substitute for common sense, legislative history, and the policy underlying the statute"
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
*1286 NORRIS, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
The question raised by this appeal is whether the appellants’ conduct constituted a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 242 . I concur in the result on the basis of the analysis in Judge Pregerson’s opinion that the statutory language, when viewed in light of the legislative history, leaves no doubt that Congress intended to make the conduct of the appellants a federal crime.