OCTOBER TERM, 1997
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fifth circuit
No. 96-7151. Argued November 12, 1997—Decided March 9, 1998
A federal indictment charged petitioner Lewis and her husband with beating and killing his 4-year-old daughter while they lived at an Army base in Louisiana. Relying on the federal Assimilative Crimes Act (ACA), 18 U. S. C. § 13(a)—which provides that "[w]hoever within . . . any [federal enclave] is guilty of any act or omission which, although not made punishable by any enactment of Congress, would be punishable . . . within the jurisdiction of the State . . . in which such place is situated, . . . shall be guilty of a like offense and subject to like punishment"—the indictment charged the defendants under a Louisiana statute defining first-degree murder to include "killing . . . [w]hen the offender has the specific intent to kill or . . . harm . . . a victim under the age of twelve . . . ." Upon her conviction of Louisiana first-degree murder, the District Court sentenced Lewis to life imprisonment without parole. The Fifth Circuit held that the Louisiana statute was not assimilated into federal law under the ACA because the federal second-degree murder statute applicable to federal enclaves, 18 U. S. C. § 1111 (1988 ed.), governed the crime at issue. The court nonetheless affirmed Lewis' conviction on the ground that, in finding her guilty of the state charge, the jury had necessarily found all of the requisite elements of federal second-degree murder. And it affirmed her sentence on the ground that it was no greater than the maximum sentence (life) permitted by § 1111.
Held:
1. Because the ACA does not make Louisiana's first-degree murder statute part of federal law, the federal second-degree murder statute, § 1111, governs the crime at issue. Pp. 159-172.
(a) The basic question before this Court is the meaning of the ACA phrase "not made punishable by any enactment of Congress." (Emphasis added.) The Court rejects an absolutely literal reading of the italicized words because that would dramatically separate the ACA from its basic purpose of borrowing state law to fill gaps in the federal criminal law applicable on federal enclaves, and would conflict with the ACA's history and features. See, e. g., Williams v. United States, 327 U. S. 711, 718-719. On the other hand, the Court cannot find a convincing justification in language, purpose, or precedent for the Government's
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