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Opinion of the Court
statute." Moskal v. United States, 498 U. S. 103, 108 (1990) (citation omitted).6
III
We hold, therefore, that application of the language in § 5037(c)(1)(B) permitting detention for a period not to exceed "the maximum term of imprisonment that would be authorized if the juvenile had been tried and convicted as an adult" refers to the maximum length of sentence to which a similarly situated adult would be subject if convicted of the adult counterpart of the offense and sentenced under the statute requiring application of the Guidelines, § 3553(b). Although determining the maximum permissible sentence under § 5037(c)(1)(B) will therefore require sentencing and reviewing courts to determine an appropriate Guideline range in juvenile-delinquency proceedings, we emphasize
6 Justice Scalia questions the soundness of Moskal's statement that we have reserved lenity for those cases (unlike this one) in which after examining "the . . . structure, legislative history, and motivating policies," in addition to the text of an ambiguous criminal statute, we are still left with a reasonable doubt about the intended scope of the statute's application. But the Court has not in the past approached the use of lenity in the way Justice Scalia would have it.
It is true that the need for fair warning will make it "rare that legislative history or statutory policies will support a construction of a statute broader than that clearly warranted by the text," Crandon v. United States, 494 U. S. 152, 160 (1990), and that "general declarations of policy," whether in the text or the legislative history, will not support construction of an ambiguous criminal statute against the defendant, Hughey v. United States, 495 U. S. 411, 422 (1990). But lenity does not always require the "narrowest" construction, and our cases have recognized that a broader construction may be permissible on the basis of nontextual factors that make clear the legislative intent where it is within the fair meaning of the statutory language. See Dixson v. United States, 465 U. S. 482, 500-501, n. 19 (1984). Cf. McBoyle v. United States, 283 U. S. 25, 27 (1931) (a criminal statute should be construed in such a way that its language gives "fair warning" to the "common mind"). Whether lenity should be given the more immediate and dispositive role Justice Scalia espouses is an issue that is not raised and need not be reached in this case.
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