510
Souter, J., dissenting
tional defect," fraught as it is with difficulties, in order to answer the constitutional question raised by its reading of the ACCA. Because it is "fairly possible," Ashwander, 297 U. S., at 348, to construe the ACCA to avoid these difficulties and those associated with the other constitutional questions I have discussed, the Ashwander rule of restraint provides sufficient reason to reject the Court's construction of the ACCA.
B
The rule of lenity, "which applies not only to interpretations of the substantive ambit of criminal prohibitions, but also to the penalties they impose," Albernaz v. United States, 450 U. S. 333, 342 (1981), drives me to the same conclusion. Though lenity is usually invoked when there is doubt about whether a legislature has criminalized particular conduct, "[the] policy of lenity [also] means that the Court will not interpret a federal criminal statute so as to increase the penalty that it places on an individual when such an interpretation can be based on no more than a guess as to what Congress intended." Ibid. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); cf. Bell v. United States, 349 U. S. 81, 83 (1955) ("It may fairly be said to be a presupposition of our law to resolve doubts in the enforcement of a penal code against the imposition of a harsher punishment"). Because I "cannot say with assurance," United States v. Granderson, ante, at 53, that Congress intended to require courts to enhance sentences on the basis of prior convictions a defendant can show to be invalid, the rule of lenity independently requires interpreting the ACCA to permit defendants to present such challenges to the sentencing judge before sentence is imposed.
C
The Court invokes "[e]ase of administration" to support its constitutional holding. Ante, at 496. While I doubt that even a powerful argument of administrative convenience
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