UNITED STATES v. RESSAM

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Syllabus
UNITED STATES v. RESSAM
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the ninth circuit
No. 07–455. Argued March 25, 2008—Decided May 19, 2008
After respondent gave false information on his customs form while at
tempting to enter the United States, a search of his car revealed explo
sives that he intended to detonate in this country. He was convicted
of, inter alia, (1) feloniously making a false statement to a customs offi
cial in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 1001, and (2) “carr[ying] an explosive
during the commission of ” that felony in violation of § 844(h)(2). The
Ninth Circuit set aside the latter conviction because it read “during” in
§ 844(h)(2) to include a requirement that the explosive be carried “in
relation to” the underlying felony.
Held: Since respondent was carrying explosives when he violated § 1001,
he was carrying them “during” the commission of that felony. The
most natural reading of § 844(h)(2) provides a sufficient basis for rever
sal. It is undisputed that the items in respondent’s car were “explo
sives,” and that he was “carr[ying]” those explosives when he knowingly
made false statements to a customs official in violation of § 1001. Dic
tionary definitions need not be consulted to arrive at the conclusion that
he engaged in § 844(h)(2)’s precise conduct. “[D]uring” denotes a tem
poral link. Because his carrying of explosives was contemporaneous
with his § 1001 violation, he carried them “during” that violation. The
statute’s history further supports the conclusion that Congress did
not intend a relational requirement in § 844(h) as presently written.
Pp. 274–277.
474 F. 3d 597, reversed.
Stevens, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J.,
and Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Alito, JJ., joined, and in which
Scalia and Thomas, JJ., joined as to Part I. Thomas, J., filed an opinion
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment, in which Scalia, J.,
joined, post, p. 277. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 277.
Attorney General Mukasey argued the cause for the
United States. On the briefs were Solicitor General Clem
ent, Assistant Attorney General Wainstein, Deputy Solici
tor General Dreeben, Toby J. Heytens, and John F. De Pue.

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Opinion of the Court
Thomas W. Hillier II argued the cause for respondent.
With him on the brief were Laura E. Mate and Lissa Wolf
endale Shook.*
Justice Stevens delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent attempted to enter the United States by car
ferry at Port Angeles, Washington. Hidden in the trunk of
his rental car were explosives that he intended to detonate
at the Los Angeles International Airport. After the ferry
docked, respondent was questioned by a customs official, who
instructed him to complete a customs declaration form; re
spondent did so, identifying himself on the form as a Cana
dian citizen (he is Algerian) named Benni Noris (his name is
Ahmed Ressam). Respondent was then directed to a sec
ondary inspection station, where another official performed
a search of his car. The official discovered explosives and
related items in the car’s spare tire well.
Respondent was subsequently convicted of a number of
crimes, including the felony of making a false statement to a
United States customs official in violation of 18 U. S. C.
§ 1001 (1994 ed., Supp. V) (Count 5) and carrying an explosive
“during the commission of ” that felony in violation of
§ 844(h)(2) (1994 ed.) (Count 9). The Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit set aside his conviction on Count 9 because
it read the word “during,” as used in § 844(h)(2), to include a
requirement that the explosive be carried “in relation to” the
underlying felony. 474 F. 3d 597, 601 (2007). Because that
construction of the statute conflicted with decisions of other
Courts of Appeals, we granted certiorari.1 552 U. S. 1074
(2007).
*Donald B. Ayer, Samuel Estreicher, Meir Feder, and Jeffrey L. Fisher
filed a brief for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as
amicus curiae.
1 Both the Third and Fifth Circuits have declined to interpret § 844(h)(2)
as requiring that the explosive be carried in relation to the underlying
felony. See United States v. Rosenberg, 806 F. 2d 1169, 1178–1179 (CA3
1986) (“The plain everyday meaning of ‘during’ is ‘at the same time’ or ‘at
a point in the course of ’ . . . . It does not normally mean ‘at the same

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Opinion of the Court
I
The most natural reading of the relevant statutory text
provides a sufficient basis for reversal. That text reads:
“Whoever—
“(1) uses fire or an explosive to commit any felony
which may be prosecuted in a court of the United
States, or
“(2) carries an explosive during the commission of any
felony which may be prosecuted in a court of the
United States,
“including a felony which provides for an enhanced pun
ishment if committed by the use of a deadly or danger
ous weapon or device shall, in addition to the pun
ishment provided for such felony, be sentenced to
imprisonment for 10 years.” 18 U. S. C. § 844(h).
It is undisputed that the items hidden in respondent’s car
were “explosives.” 2 It is also undisputed that respondent
was “carr[ying]” those explosives when he knowingly made
false statements to a customs official, and that those state
ments violated § 1001 (1994 ed., Supp. V).
There is no need to consult dictionary definitions of the
word “during” in order to arrive at the conclusion that
respondent engaged in the precise conduct described in
§ 844(h)(2) (1994 ed.). The term “during” denotes a tempo
ral link; that is surely the most natural reading of the word
time and in connection with . . . .’ It is not fitting for this court to declare
that the crime defined by § 844(h)(2) has more elements than those enu
merated on the face of the statute”); United States v. Ivy, 929 F. 2d 147,
151 (CA5 1991) (“Section 844(h)(2) . . . does not include the relation element
Ivy urges . . . . We . . . refuse to judicially append the relation element
to § 844(h)(2)”).
2 Because respondent concedes that the items in his car were “explo
sives,” we have no occasion to determine the boundaries of that term as
used in the statute. Specifically, we do not comment on when, if ever,
“such commonplace materials as kerosene, gasoline, or certain fertilizers,”
post, at 278 (Breyer, J., dissenting), might fall within the definition of
“explosive.”

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Opinion of the Court
as used in the statute. Because respondent’s carrying of the
explosives was contemporaneous with his violation of § 1001,
he carried them “during” that violation.
II
The history of the statute we construe today further sup
ports our conclusion that Congress did not intend to require
the Government to establish a relationship between the ex
plosive carried and the underlying felony. Congress origi
nally enacted § 844(h)(2) as part of its “Regulation of Explo
sives” in Title XI of the Organized Crime Control Act of
1970, 84 Stat. 957. The provision was modeled after a por
tion of the Gun Control Act of 1968, § 102, 82 Stat. 1224, codi
fied, as amended, at 18 U. S. C. § 924(c) (2000 ed. and Supp.
V). The earlier statute mandated at least 1 and no more
than 10 years’ imprisonment for any person who “carries a
firearm unlawfully during the commission of any felony
which may be prosecuted in a court of the United States.”
18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(2) (1964 ed., Supp. IV). Except for the
word “explosive” in § 844(h)(2), instead of the word “firearm”
in § 924(c)(2), the two provisions as originally enacted were
identical.
In 1984, Congress redrafted the firearm statute; it in
creased the penalties attached to the provision and, most sig
nificantly for our purposes, deleted the word “unlawfully”
and inserted the words “and in relation to” immediately after
the word “during.” § 1005(a), 98 Stat. 2138. Reviewing a
conviction for an offense that was committed before the
amendment but not decided on appeal until after its enact
ment, the Ninth Circuit held that the original version of the
firearm statute had implicitly included the “in relation to”
requirement that was expressly added while the case was
pending on appeal. As then-Judge Kennedy explained:
“The statute as written when Stewart committed the
offense provided in pertinent part that it was a crime to
‘carr[y] a firearm unlawfully during the commission of
any felony . . . .’ 18 U. S. C. § 924(c)(2) (1982). In 1984,

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Opinion of the Court
Congress revised section 924(c) . . . . The 1984 amend
ment substituted for the word ‘during’ the phrase ‘dur
ing and in relation to.’ 18 U. S. C. A. § 924(c) (West
Supp. 1985) (emphasis added). Our study of the legisla
tive history of the amendment . . . indicates the ‘in rela
tion to’ language was not intended to create an element
of the crime that did not previously exist, but rather
was intended to make clear a condition already implicit
in the statute. The legislative history reveals that be
cause the amendment eliminated the requirement that
the firearm be carried unlawfully, 18 U. S. C. A. § 924(c)
(West Supp. 1985), the ‘in relation to’ language was
added to allay explicitly the concern that a person could
be prosecuted under section 924(c) for committing an en
tirely unrelated crime while in possession of a firearm.
Though the legislative history does not say so expressly,
it strongly implies that the ‘in relation to’ language did
not alter the scope of the statute . . . .” United States
v. Stewart, 779 F. 2d 538, 539–540 (1985) (citations
omitted).
Relying on that Circuit precedent, the Court of Appeals in
this case concluded that the explosives statute, like the fire
arm statute, implicitly included a requirement of a relation
ship between possession of the item in question and the un
derlying felony. Whatever the merits of the argument that
§ 924(c) as originally enacted contained a relational require
ment, the subsequent changes to both statutes convince us
that the Government’s reading of § 844(h) as presently writ
ten is correct.
III
In 1988, Congress enacted the “Explosives Offenses
Amendments,” § 6474(b), 102 Stat. 4379, which modified the
text of § 844(h). Those amendments increased the penalties
for violating the provision, § 6474(b)(2), id., at 4380; they also
deleted the word “unlawfully,” § 6474(b)(1), ibid. Unlike its

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earlier amendment to the firearm statute, however, Congress
did not also insert the words “and in relation to” after the
word “during.” While it is possible that this omission was
inadvertent, that possibility seems remote given the stark
difference that was thereby introduced into the otherwise
similar texts of 18 U. S. C. §§ 844(h) and 924(c).
Even if the similarity of the original texts of the two stat
utes might have supported an inference that both included
an implicit relationship requirement, their current difference
virtually commands the opposite inference. While the two
provisions were initially identical, Congress’ replacement of
the word “unlawfully” in the firearm statute with the phrase
“and in relation to,” coupled with the deletion of the word
“unlawfully” without any similar replacement in the explo
sives statute, convinces us that Congress did not intend to
introduce a relational requirement into the explosives provi
sion, but rather intended us to accept the more straight
forward reading of § 844(h). Since respondent was carrying
explosives when he violated § 1001, he was carrying them
“during” the commission of that felony. The statute as pres
ently written requires nothing further.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
reversed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Thomas, with whom Justice Scalia joins, con
curring in part and concurring in the judgment.
Because the plain language of the statute squarely an
swers the question presented in this case, I join only Part I
of the Court’s opinion.
Justice Breyer, dissenting.
The statute before us imposes a mandatory 10-year sen
tence on any person who “carries an explosive during the
commission of any [federal] felony.” 18 U. S. C. § 844(h)(2).
The Ninth Circuit interpreted the statute as requiring a “re

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lation” between the explosives carrying and the felony (here,
making a false statement to a customs officer), such that the
explosives carrying “ ‘facilitated’ ” or “aided” the commission
of the felony. 474 F. 3d 597, 604 (2007). The Court inter
prets the statute to the contrary. It holds that the statute
requires no more than a “temporal link” between the explo
sives carrying and the felony, that is to say, the two need
only have occurred at the same time. See ante, at 274. I
cannot agree with either interpretation.
I
My problem with the Court’s interpretation is that it
would permit conviction of any individual who legally carries
explosives at the time that he engages in a totally unrelated
felony. “Explosives,” the statute tells us, includes not only
obviously explosive material such as “gunpowders” and
“dynamite” but also any “chemical compounds” or “mix
ture[s]” or “device[s]” whose “ignition by fire, by friction, by
concussion” or other means “may cause an explosion.” 18
U. S. C. § 844( j). And that definition encompasses such com
monplace materials as kerosene, gasoline, or certain fertiliz
ers. Moreover, the “carr[ying]” to which the statute refers
includes carrying that is otherwise legal. Further, the stat
ute applies to the carrying of explosives during “any” federal
felony, a category that ranges from murder to mail fraud.
See § 1111 (2000 ed. and Supp. V); § 1341 (2000 ed., Supp. V).
Consequently the Court’s opinion brings within the stat
ute’s scope (and would impose an additional mandatory
10-year prison term upon), for example, a farmer lawfully
transporting a load of fertilizer who intentionally mails an
unauthorized lottery ticket to a friend, a hunter lawfully car
rying gunpowder for shotgun shells who buys snacks with a
counterfeit $20 bill, a truckdriver lawfully transporting die
sel fuel who lies to a customs official about the value of pres
ents he bought in Canada for his family, or an accountant

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who engaged in a 6-year-long conspiracy to commit tax eva
sion and who, one day during that conspiracy, bought gas for
his lawnmower. In such instances the lawful carrying of an
“explosive” has nothing whatsoever to do with the unlaw
ful felonies. I cannot imagine why Congress would have
wanted the presence of totally irrelevant, lawful behavior to
trigger an additional 10-year mandatory prison term.
The statute’s language does not demand such an interpre
tation. I agree with the majority that the word “during”
requires a “temporal link.” See ante, at 274. But a state
ment that uses the word “during” may or may not imply
other limitations as well, depending upon the context in
which the statement is made. Thus, when I tell a friend
from Puerto Rico, “I wear gloves during Washington’s win
ter,” he does not think I mean baseball mitts. Rather,
I imply (and he understands) a relation or link between the
gloves and the winter. When I say to a group of lawyers,
“I take notes during oral argument,” I imply (and they un
derstand) that the notes bear a relation to the law being
argued. But when I say, “I called my brother during the
day,” I do not imply any particular relation (other than a
temporal relation) between the day and the phone call.
Context makes the difference.
Here, the statute’s context makes clear that the statutory
statement does not cover a “carr[ying]” of explosives that is
totally unrelated to the “felony.” The lengthy mandatory
minimum sentence is evidence of what the statute’s legisla
tive history separately indicates, namely, that Congress
sought to criminalize and impose harsh penalties in respect
to the “intentional misuse of explosives,” see H. R. Rep.
No. 91–1549, p. 38 (1970) (hereinafter H. R. Rep.) (emphasis
added). A person who lawfully carries explosives while com
mitting some other felony does not even arguably “misuse”
those explosives unless the carrying has something to do
with the other felony. Nor in the absence of some such rela

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tionship is there any obvious reason to impose an additional
mandatory 10-year sentence on a person who unlawfully
carries explosives while committing some other felony.
Similar reasoning led the Ninth Circuit in 1985 to interpret
a related statute, which punished the carrying of a firearm
“during” the commission of a federal felony, as requiring a
significant relationship between the firearms carrying and
the other felony. See United States v. Stewart, 779 F. 2d
538. Justice (then-Judge) Kennedy recognized that
“ ‘Congress did not intend to penalize one who happens to
have a gun in his possession when he commits an entirely
unrelated offense.’ ” Id., at 540 (quoting United States v.
Moore, 580 F. 2d 360, 362 (CA9 1978)). In my view, that
same reasoning should apply when we interpret the explo
sives statute, which was originally modeled on the firearms
statute. See H. R. Rep., at 69 (the explosives statute “car
ries over to the explosives area the stringent provisions of
the Gun Control Act of 1968 relating to the use of firearms
and the unlawful carrying of firearms to commit, or during
the commission of a Federal felony”).
I recognize that the language of the firearms statute now
differs from the language of the explosives statute in an im
portant way. The firearms statute originally punished (with
a 1-to-10-year sentence) a person who “carries a firearm un
lawfully during the commission of any [federal] felony.” 18
U. S. C. § 924(c)(2) (1964 ed., Supp. IV). In 1984, Congress
amended the firearms statute by providing a mandatory min
imum punishment of five years and by striking the word “un
lawfully.” § 1005(a), 98 Stat. 2138. When it did so, Con
gress also added to the statute specific words of limitation,
namely, the words “and in relation to” (so that the statute
covered any person who carried a firearm “during and in
relation to” the commission of a “felony”). Ibid.
The words “in relation to” do not appear in the explosives
statute. But neither did those words appear in the pre-1984

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version of the firearms statute that was the subject of the
Ninth Circuit opinion in Stewart (yet the Ninth Circuit none
theless found an implicit relational requirement). And the
fact that these words now appear in the firearms statute but
not the explosives statute cannot make the determinative
difference.
The history of the firearms statute makes clear that the
reason Congress added to that statute the words “in relation
to” has to do with Congress’ decision to remove from the
firearms statute the word “unlawfully.” By removing that
word, Congress indicated that the firearms statute should
apply to “persons who are licensed to carry firearms” but
who “abuse that privilege by committing a crime with the
weapon.” S. Rep. No. 98–225, p. 314, n. 10 (1983). At the
same time, however, Congress believed that the statute
should not apply where the firearm’s presence “played no
part in the crime, such as a gun carried in a pocket and never
displayed or referred to in the course of a pugilistic barroom
fight.” Ibid. The addition of the words “in relation to”
made this dual objective textually clear.
The absence of the words “in relation to” here must lead
us to ask (but it does not answer) the question: Did Congress
intend something different in respect to the explosives stat
ute? There are strong reasons for thinking it did not. Con
gress, after all, amended the explosives statute in response
to the Department of Justice’s express request to “bring”
the explosives statute “in line with” the firearms statute.
See 131 Cong. Rec. 14166 (1985); see also 134 Cong. Rec.
32700 (1988) (statement of Sen. Biden) (noting that the pur
pose of amending the explosives statute was to “bring it in
line with similar amendments [previously] adopted . . . with
respect to the parallel offense of using or carrying a firearm
during the commission of federal offenses”). Congress ac
cordingly increased the mandatory minimum punishment to
five years and struck the word “unlawfully.” See § 6474(b),

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102 Stat. 4379–4380. If Congress, in neglecting to add the
words “in relation to,” sought to create a meaningful distinc
tion between the explosives and firearms statutes, one would
think that someone somewhere would have mentioned this
objective.
Further, to read the two statutes differently would break
the very parallel treatment of firearms and explosives that
led Congress, at the Department of Justice’s urging, to
amend the explosives statute in the first place. It would
produce the peculiar and unfair results I previously men
tioned. See supra, at 278–279. It would conflict with Con
gress’ original rationale for enacting the explosives statute
(to punish the misuse of explosives). And it would risk inco
herent results: Why would Congress wish not to punish a
policeman for carrying an unrelated revolver during the com
mission of a felony, but then wish to punish that same police
man for carrying unrelated gunpowder for unrelated bullets?
At the same time one can explain the absence of the words
“in relation to” in less damaging ways. The legislative
drafters of the explosives amendment may have assumed
that prior judicial interpretation (namely, United States v.
Stewart, supra) made the words “in relation to” unnecessary.
See Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U. S. 575, 580 (1978) (“Congress
is presumed to be aware of an administrative or judicial in
terpretation of a statute and to adopt that interpretation
when it re-enacts a statute without change”). Or, as the ma
jority recognizes, the omission of the language may reflect
simple drafting inadvertence. See ante, at 277.
I concede that the presence of a phrase in one statute and
the absence of the same phrase in another related statute
can signal an intended difference in relative statutory scope.
But that is not inevitably so. Cf. Russello v. United States,
464 U. S. 16, 23 (1983) (noting only a presumption that Con
gress has acted intentionally and purposely if it “includes
particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in
another section of the same Act” (internal quotation marks

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omitted)). And here the circumstances that I have men
tioned make this a case in which that linguistic fact is not
determinative.
No more here than elsewhere in life can words alone ex
plain every nuance of their intended application. Context
matters. And if judges are to give meaningful effect to the
intent of the enacting legislature, they must interpret statu
tory text with reference to the statute’s purpose and its
history.
The Court, with its decision today, makes possible the
strange results I describe above precisely because it resolves
the statutory interpretation question by examining the
meaning of just one word in isolation. In context, however,
the language excludes from the statute’s scope instances in
which there is no significant relation between the explosives
carrying and the felony. A contextual interpretation fur
thers Congress’ original purpose, is less likely to encourage
random punishment, and is consistent with the statute’s
overall history. As a result, like the Ninth Circuit, I would
read the statute as insisting upon some (other than merely
temporal) relationship between explosives carrying and
“felony.”
II
At the same time, I cannot agree with the Ninth Circuit
that the statute restricts the requisite relationship to one
in which the carrying of the explosives “ ‘facilitated’ ” (or
“aided”) the felony. 474 F. 3d, at 604. In my view, the stat
ute must also cover a felony committed to facilitate the
carrying of explosives. Why should it matter in which di
rection the facilitating flows? Either way, there is a relation
between the carrying of explosives and the other felony.
Either way, one might reasonably conclude that the presence
of the explosives will elevate the risks of harm that other
wise would ordinarily arise out of the felony’s commission.
Either way, one might consider the explosives “misused.”
Thus, I believe the statute applies if the felony, here, the

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making of a false statement to a customs officer, facilitated
or aided the carrying of explosives. And I would remand
the case for the Circuit to determine the presence or absence
of that relevant relation.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.