Cite as: 535 U. S. 55 (2002)
Opinion of the Court
At best, as we have said before, the canon that expressing one item of a commonly associated group or series excludes another left unmentioned is only a guide, whose fallibility can be shown by contrary indications that adopting a particular rule or statute was probably not meant to signal any exclusion of its common relatives. See Pauley v. BethEnergy Mines, Inc., 501 U. S. 680, 703 (1991); cf. Burns v. United States, 501 U. S. 129, 136 (1991) ("An inference drawn from congressional silence certainly cannot be credited when it is contrary to all other textual and contextual evidence of congressional intent"). Here, the plausibility of an expression-exclusion reading of Rule 11(h) is subject to one strike without even considering what such a reading would mean in practice, or examining the circumstances of adopting 11(h). For here the harmless- and plain-error alternatives are associated together in the formally enacted Rule 52, having apparently equal dignity with Rule 11(h), and applying by its terms to error in the application of any other Rule of criminal procedure. To hold that the terms of Rule 11(h) imply that the latter half of Rule 52 has no application to Rule 11 errors would consequently amount to finding a partial repeal of Rule 52(b) by implication, a result sufficiently disfavored, Ruckelshaus v. Monsanto Co., 467 U. S. 986, 1017 (1984), as to require strong support.
Support, however, is not readily found. In the first place, even if we indulge Vonn with the assumption that Congress meant to imply something by failing to pair a plain-error provision with the harmless-error statement in Rule 11(h), just what it would have meant is subject to argument. Vonn thinks the implication is that defendants who let Rule 11 error pass without objection are relieved of the burden on silent defendants generally under the plain-error rule, to show the error plain, prejudicial, and disreputable to the judicial system. But, of course, this is not the only "implication" consistent with Congress's choice to say nothing about Rule 11 plain error. It would be equally possible, as a mat-
65
Page: Index Previous 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007