142
Stevens, J., dissenting
after an earlier conviction has become final; it is, in short, a recidivist provision. When that sensible construction is adopted, of course, the grammatical difficulties and the potential for prosecutorial manipulation that trouble the majority, see ante, at 131-134, are avoided entirely. See United States v. Neal, 976 F. 2d 601, 603 (CA9 1992) (Fletcher, J., dissenting) ("common-sense reading of § 924(c)" as recidivist statute).
Even assuming, however, that the meaning of § 924(c)'s repeat offender provision is not as obvious as I think, its history belies the notion that its text admits of only one reading, that adopted in Rawlings. Surely it cannot be argued that a construction surfacing for the first time 19 years after enactment is the only available construction. Indeed, even after Rawlings, there is no consensus on this point; some courts—and some Government prosecutors—continue to apply § 924(c) as a recidivist statute.6 In United States v. Nabors, 901 F. 2d 1351 (CA6), cert. denied, 498 U. S. 871 (1990), for instance, a case decided in 1990, the Court of Appeals purported to follow Rawlings, but actually affirmed imposition of two 5-year sentences for convictions on two distinct § 924(c) violations.7 Similarly, in United States v.
6 Dismissing these cases, as well as those decided pre-Rawlings, as a long line of "erroneous lower-court decisions," ante, at 135, cannot explain why 19 years passed before the correct interpretation of a statute of "utterly no ambiguity," ibid., made its first reported appearance.
7 There is some tension between the notion that the text of the statute is clear and unambiguous and the Court of Appeals' explanation for its holding:
"While § 924(c)(1) is, at best, hard to follow in simple English, we concur with the reasoning in Rawlings that two distinct violations of the statute trigger the subsequent sentence enhancement provisions of § 924(c)(1). Thus, the commission of two violations of § 924(c)(1) would result in a five-year consecutive sentence for the first conviction and a ten-year consecutive sentence for the second § 924(c)(1) conviction. However, because of the complexity of this issue, we find the district court's failure to sentence Nabors to a ten-year consecutive sentence for his second § 924(c)(1) conviction not clearly erroneous." United States v. Nabors, 901 F. 2d, at 1358-1359.
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