By Joshua M. Robbins
“A law prohibits certain actions, prescribes a penalty for each violation. But courts across the country, after struggling with the law’s text, structure, and legislative history, cannot agree on what exactly a “violation” is. A layperson has no hope of answering that question with certainty. Yet in enforcing the law, the government seeks to impose the most aggressive interpretation of the term, increasing a defendant’s liability factor by 50. This is the scenario in Bittner v. United States, in which the Supreme Court will construe a challenging statue with both civil and criminal implications.”