Dubin v. United States

Summary

Justice Sotomayor, writing for eight Justices, held that a defendant uses another person’s means of identification in relation to a predicate offense under 18 U.S.C. §1028A(a)(1) only when that use is at the crux of what makes the conduct criminal, rather than an ancillary feature of billing. For fraud or deceit offenses, the identifying information itself must be used fraudulently or deceptively; merely facilitating the offense is insufficient. Dubin’s misrepresentations concerned the qualifications of the service provider and when services were provided, not the identity of the patient. The Court vacated the Fifth Circuit’s judgment and remanded, leaving preservation and plain-error questions unresolved. Justice Gorsuch concurred in the judgment alone, without any joining Justice. He agreed that the Government’s expansive interpretation must be rejected but argued that the Court’s alternative test remained indeterminate and expressed the view that the statute was unconstitutionally vague.