Cite as: 507 U. S. 43 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
The outcome of the present case turns upon the meaning of the phrase, in Article III(a), "within one hundred and eighty days after he shall have caused to be delivered." The issue, specifically, is whether, within the factual context before us, that phrase refers to (1) the time at which petitioner transmitted his notice and request (hereinafter simply "request") to the Indiana correctional authorities; or rather (2) the time at which the Michigan prosecutor and court (hereinafter simply "prosecutor") received that request.
Respondent argues that no one can have "caused something to be delivered" unless delivery in fact occurs. That is self-evidently true,2 and so we must reject petitioner's contention that a prisoner's transmittal of an IAD request to
2 Not, however, to the dissent: "The fact that the rule for marking the start of the 180-day period is written in a fashion that contemplates actual delivery . . . does not mean that it cannot apply if the request is never delivered." Post, at 55. Of course it vastly understates the matter to say that the provision is "written in a fashion that contemplates actual delivery," as one might say Hamlet was written in a fashion that contemplates 16th-century dress. Causation of delivery is the very condition of this provision's operation—and the dissent says it does not matter whether delivery is caused.
The dissent asserts that "the logical way to express the idea that receipt must be perfected before the provision applies would be to start the clock 180 days 'after he has caused the request to have been delivered.'" Post, at 53. But that reformulation changes the meaning in two respects that have nothing to do with whether receipt must be perfected: First, by using the perfect indicative ("after he has caused") rather than the future perfect ("after he shall have caused"), it omits the notion that the "causing" is to occur not merely before the statutory deadline, but in the future; second, by using the perfect infinitive ("to have been delivered") rather than the present ("to be delivered"), it adds the utterly fascinating notion that the receipt is to occur before the causing of receipt. The omission of futurity and the addition of a requirement of antecedence are the only differences between saying, for example, "after he shall have found the hostages to be well treated" and "after he has found the hostages to have been well treated." In both cases good treatment must be established, just as under both the statutory text and the dissent's reformulation delivery must be established.
47
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007