underlying offenses that do not impose any mandatory prison sentence at all. The Government’s reading, however, does not meaningfully distinguish between the aggravated identity theft crime that Congress singled out for heightened punishment and other crimes. Instead, so long as the criteria for the broad predicate offenses are met, a defendant faces an automatic 2-year sentence for generic overbilling that happens to use names or other means of identification for routine billing and payment. A far more sensible conclusion from the statutory structure is that §1028A(a)(1)’s enhancement targets situations where the means of identification itself is at the crux of the underlying criminality, not just an ancillary billing feature. Pp. 15–17.
(e) In contrast to the staggering breadth of the Government’s reading of §1028A, this Court has “ ‘traditionally exercised restraint in assessing the reach of a federal criminal statute,’ ” Marinello v. United States, 584 U. S. ___, ___, and prudently avoided reading incongruous breadth into opaque language in criminal statutes. See, e.g., Van Buren v. United States, 593 U. S. ___. The vast sweep of the Government’s reading—under which everyday overbilling cases would account for the majority of violations—“underscores the implausibility of the Government’s interpretation.” Id., at ___. While the Government represents that prosecutors will act responsibly in charging defendants under its sweeping reading, this Court “cannot construe a criminal statute on the assumption that the Government will ‘use it responsibly.’ ” McDonnell, 579 U. S., at 576. Pp. 17–19.
27 F. 4th 1021, vacated and remanded.
Sotomayor, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which
Roberts, C. J., and
Thomas,
Alito,
Kagan,
Kavanaugh,
Barrett, and
Jackson, JJ., joined.
Gorsuch, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment.
