220
Thomas, J., dissenting
B
The third "contextual feature" is § 1915's affidavit requirement, which, in the Court's view, raises a number of "difficulties." Ante, at 204. One such "difficulty" is the "problem of establishing an affiant's authorization"; a court may have trouble determining whether a member of an unincorporated association "has any business purporting to bind it by affidavit." Ibid. Another "difficulty" is that the affidavit requirement's deterrent function cannot be served "fully" when the litigant is an artificial entity. Ante, at 205. This is because "[n]atural persons can be imprisoned for perjury, but artificial entities can only be fined," ibid., and because the possibility of prosecuting the entity's perjurious agent is only a " 'second-best' solution," ante, at 206, n. 7.
But these are classic policy considerations—the concerns of a legislature, not a court. Unlike the majority, I am perfectly willing to assume that in adding the word "person" to § 1915 Congress took into account the fact that it might be difficult to determine whether an association's member has the authority to speak on its behalf, and that the possibility of a perjury prosecution might not deter artificial entities sufficiently. In deciding that "the context indicates otherwise," the Court has simply second-guessed Congress' policy judgments.8
8 The majority also gives "some weight," ante, at 204, to § 1915(a)'s requirement that the affidavit state the "affiant's belief that he is entitled to redress." If the "affiant" is "an agent making an affidavit on behalf of an artificial entity," according to the majority, "it would wrench the rules of grammar to read 'he' as referring to the entity." Ante, at 205. This may be so, but only if the majority's premise is correct. Since an "affiant" is simply a person who makes an affidavit, see Black's Law Dictionary 79 (4th ed. 1951), and an artificial entity can make an affidavit through an agent, it is hardly unreasonable to understand the word "affiant" in § 1915(a) as a reference not to the agent but to the entity on whose behalf the affidavit is made. Such an understanding is all the more reasonable when the agent is an officer of the entity, since courts have held that under
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