Brief filed: 08/02/2022
Documents
Dubin v. United States
United States Supreme Court; Case No. 22-10
Argument(s)
This amicus brief illustrates that the sweeping application of Section 1028A is a symptom of the federal overcriminalization epidemic, enabling unelected prosecutors to consolidate even more charging and plea-bargaining power. This brief also demonstrates that the statutory purpose of Section 1028A is wholly at odds with the Fifth Circuit’s expansive reading. Simply put, Congress did not intend to criminalize Dubin’s conduct under Section 1028A, a law enacted in 2004 to address the “growing problem of identity theft,” targeting those who “use false identities to commit much more serious crimes.” Congress identified numerous examples of criminal acts covered under the statute—none of which remotely resembles Dubin’s conduct and all of which involve the use of personal information to impersonate another. In other words, the statute was intended to punish theft of an identity, something that did not happen here.
Author(s)
Jeffrey T. Green, NACDL, Washington, DC; Henry W. Asbill, Bradley A. Marcus, and Jill Winter, Buckley LLP, Washington, DC; Daniel R. Alonso, Buckley LLP, New York, NY.
