Cite as: 520 U. S. 1 (1997)
Stevens, J., dissenting
Thus, common sense requires us to reject a purely literal reading of the text. The question that then arises is which is the better of two plausible nonliteral readings. Should the term "any other term of imprisonment" be narrowed by reading it to cover only "any other term of imprisonment that has already been imposed," as the Government argues, or "any other federal term of imprisonment," as respondents contend?
For three reasons, I think it more likely that Congress intended the latter interpretation. First, it borders on the irrational to assume that Congress would actually intend the severity of the defendant's punishment in a case of this kind to turn on the happenstance of whether the state or the federal prosecution was concluded first. Respondents' reading of the statute avoids that anomaly. Second, when § 924(c) was amended in 1970 to prohibit concurrent sentences, see Title II, Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1970, 84 Stat. 1889, this prohibition applied only to the federal sentence imposed for the underlying offense. When Congress amended the statute in 1984 to broaden the prohibition beyond the underlying offense, it said nothing about state sentences; if Congress had intended the amendment to apply to state as well as federal sentences, I think there would have been some mention of this important change in the legislative history.2 Furthermore, the 1984 amendment was part of a general revision of sentencing laws that sought to achieve more uniformity and predictability in federal sentencing. See Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, 98 Stat. 1987, 18 U. S. C. § 3551 et seq. The anomaly that the Government's reading of § 924(c) authorizes is inconsistent with the basic uniformity theme of the 1984 legislation. Finally, the context
2 "In a case where the construction of legislative language such as this makes so sweeping and so relatively unorthodox a change as that made here, I think judges as well as detectives may take into consideration the fact that a watchdog did not bark in the night." Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., 446 U. S. 578, 602 (1980) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting).
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