250
Scalia, J., dissenting
I
"[W]here a statute is susceptible of two constructions, by one of which grave and doubtful constitutional questions arise and by the other of which such questions are avoided, our duty is to adopt the latter." United States ex rel. Attorney General v. Delaware & Hudson Co., 213 U. S. 366, 408 (1909). This "cardinal principle," which "has for so long been applied by this Court that it is beyond debate," Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building & Constr. Trades Council, 485 U. S. 568, 575 (1988), requires merely a determination of serious constitutional doubt, and not a determination of unconstitutionality. That must be so, of course, for otherwise the rule would "mea[n] that our duty is to first decide that a statute is unconstitutional and then proceed to hold that such ruling was unnecessary because the statute is susceptible of a meaning, which causes it not to be repugnant to the Constitution." United States ex rel. Attorney General v. Delaware & Hudson Co., supra, at 408. The Court contends that neither of the two conditions for application of this rule is present here: that the constitutional question is not doubtful, and that the statute is not susceptible of a construction that will avoid it. I shall address the former point first.1
1 The Court asserts that we have declined to apply the doctrine "in circumstances similar to those here—where a constitutional question, while lacking an obvious answer, does not lead a majority gravely to doubt that the statute is constitutional." Ante, at 239. The cases it cites, however, do not support this contention. In Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U. S. 173 (1991), the Court believed that "[t]here [was] no question but that the statutory prohibition . . . [was] constitutional," id., at 192 (emphasis added). And in United States v. Locke, 471 U. S. 84 (1985), the Court found the doctrine inapplicable not because of lack of constitutional doubt, but because the statutory language did not permit an interpretation that would "avoid a constitutional question," id., at 96. Similarly, in United States v. Monsanto, 491 U. S. 600 (1989), "the language of [the statute was] plain and unambiguous," id., at 606.
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