Flores-Figueroa v. United States

Flores-Figueroa v. United States, 556 U.S. 646 (2009), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, holding that the law enhancing the sentence for identity theft requires proof that an individual knew that the identity card or number he had used belonged to another, actual person. Simply using a Social Security Number is not sufficient connection to another individual.

Flores-Figueroa v. United States
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued February 25, 2009 Decided May 4, 2009
Full case name	Ignacio Carlos Flores-Figueroa, Petitioner v. United States
Docket no.	08-108
Citations	556 U.S. 646 (more) 129 S. Ct. 1886; 173 L. Ed. 2d 853; 2009 U.S. LEXIS 3305
Case history
Prior	Defendant convicted (S.D. Iowa 2008); affirmed, 274 F. App'x 501 (8th Cir. 2008); cert. granted, 555 U.S. 969 (2008).
Holding
The "knowingly" requirement for the federal crime of aggravated identity theft requires that the defendant knew that the false identification he used actually belonged to another person.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · David Souter Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg Stephen Breyer · Samuel Alito
Case opinions
Majority	Breyer, joined by Roberts, Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg
Concurrence	Scalia (in judgment), joined by Thomas
Concurrence	Alito (in judgment)
Laws applied
18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1)

Background

Ignacio Flores-Figueroa, an illegal alien from Mexico, used a counterfeit Social Security card bearing his real name and a false Social Security number to obtain employment at a steel plant in East Moline, Illinois. Though he did not know it, the number belonged to a real person, a minor. The question in the case was whether workers who use false Social Security and alien registration numbers must know that they belong to a real person to be subject to a two-year sentence extension for "aggravated identity theft."

Specifically, the case hinged on whether the adverb "knowingly" applies only to the verb or also to the object in 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1) (which defines aggravated identity theft): "Whoever [...] knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person [...]".

Opinion of the Court

In a unanimous decision delivered by Justice Breyer on May 4, 2009, the Court held that a prosecutor must be able to show that a defendant knew that the identification he used actually belonged to another person.

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 556
• Mens rea
• Morissette v. United States (1952)

Further reading

• Liptak, Adam (October 20, 2008). "Justices Take Case on Illegal Workers and Penalties for Identity Theft". The New York Times.
• Stout, David (May 4, 2009). "Supreme Court Rules Against Government in Identity-Theft Case". The New York Times. Retrieved May 4, 2009.
• Traps, Leonid (2012). "'Knowingly' Ignorant: Mens Rea Distribution in Federal Criminal Law after Flores-Figueroa" (PDF). Columbia Law Review. 112 (3): 628–664. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 28, 2013. Retrieved October 8, 2012.

External links

• Text of Flores-Figueroa v. United States, 556 U.S. 646 (2009) is available from: Cornell CourtListener Findlaw Google Scholar Justia Oyez (oral argument audio)