Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, Inc.

(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2005 1

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

SCHEIDLER ET AL. v. NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR
WOMEN, INC., ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT

No. 04–1244. Argued November 30, 2005—Decided February 28,
2006*
Respondents, a national nonprofit organization that supports the legal
availability of abortions and two health care clinics that perform
abortions, filed a class action alleging that petitioners, individuals
and organizations that oppose legal abortion, engaged in a nation-
wide conspiracy to shut down abortion clinics through violence and
other unlawful acts. Arguing that petitioners’ activities amounted in
context to extortionate acts that created a pattern of racketeering ac-
tivity, respondents based their claims on, inter alia, the Hobbs Act,
which makes it a federal crime to “obstruc[t], dela[y], or affec[t] com-
merce . . . by . . . robbery or extortion . . . or commit[ting] or
threaten[ing] physical violence to any person or property in further-
ance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of this section,”
18 U. S. C. §1951(a), and on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
Organizations Act (RICO), which defines a proscribed “pattern of
racketeering activity,” §1962(a), in terms of certain predicate acts
that include extortion, see §1961(1). After trial, the jury concluded
that petitioners violated RICO’s civil provisions, the Hobbs Act, and
other extortion-related laws. In Scheidler v. National Organization for
Women, Inc., 537 U. S. 393 (NOW II), this Court reversed the Seventh
Circuit’s affirmance of the jury’s award of damages and the District
Court’s issuance of a permanent nationwide injunction. The Court
noted that the Hobbs Act defines “extortion” as necessarily including
the improper “ ‘obtaining of property from another,’ ” id., at 400
——————
* Together with No. 04–1352, Operation Rescue v. National Organiza-
tion for Women, Inc., et al., also on certiorari to the same court.
2 SCHEIDLER v. NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN,

INC.

Syllabus

(quoting §1951(b)(2)); observed that the claimed “property” here con-
sisted of a woman’s right to seek clinic services and the rights of
clinic staff to perform their jobs and of clinics to provide care free
from wrongful threats, violence, coercion, and fear, id., at 400–401;
decided that characterizing petitioners’ actions as an “obtaining of
property from” respondents went well beyond permissible bounda-
ries, id., at 402; and held, therefore, that petitioners did not commit
extortion as defined by the Hobbs Act, id., at 397. The Court con-
cluded that, because all of the predicate acts supporting the jury’s
finding of a RICO violation had to be reversed, the judgment that pe-
titioners violated RICO must also be reversed, id., at 411. On re-
mand, the Court of Appeals decided that, because this Court had not
considered respondents’ alternative theory that the jury’s RICO ver-
dict rested not only on extortion-related conduct, but also on four in-
stances (or threats) of physical violence unrelated to extortion, the
cases must be remanded to the District Court to determine whether
these four acts alone might constitute Hobbs Act violations (suffi-
cient, as predicate acts under RICO, to support the injunction).
Held: Physical violence unrelated to robbery or extortion falls outside
the Hobbs Act’s scope. Congress did not intend to create a freestand-
ing physical violence offense. It did intend to forbid acts or threats of
physical violence in furtherance of a plan or purpose to engage in
what the Act refers to as robbery or extortion (and related attempts
or conspiracies). Pp. 5–11.
(a) The more restrictive reading of the statutory text—the one ty-
ing the prohibited violence to robbery or extortion—is correct. For
one thing, it is the more natural reading. The text preceding the
physical violence clause does not forbid obstructing, delaying, or af-
fecting commerce; rather, it forbids obstructing, delaying, or affecting
commerce “by robbery or extortion.” §1951(a) (emphasis added). This
means that behavior that obstructs, delays, or affects commerce is a
“violation” of the statute only if it also involves robbery or extortion
(or related attempts or conspiracies). Consequently, the reference in
the physical violence clause to actions or threats of violence “in fur-
therance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of this sec-
tion” seems to mean acts or threats of violence in furtherance of a
plan or purpose to engage in robbery or extortion, for that is the only
kind of behavior that the section otherwise makes a violation. This
restrictive reading is further supported by the fact that Congress of-
ten intends such statutory terms as “affect commerce” or “in com-
merce” to be read as terms of art connecting the congressional exer-
cise of legislative authority with the constitutional provision (here,
the Commerce Clause) granting that authority. See, e.g., Allied-
Bruce Terminix Cos. v. Dobson, 513 U. S. 265, 273. Such jurisdic-
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 3

Syllabus

tional language may limit, but it will not primarily define, the behav-
ior that the statute calls a “violation” of federal law. Cf. Jones v.
United States, 529 U. S. 848, 854. Moreover, the statute’s history
supports the more restrictive reading: Both of the Hobbs Act’s prede-
cessor statutes made clear that the physical violence they prohibited
was not violence in furtherance of a plan to injure commerce, but vio-
lence in furtherance of a plan to injure commerce through coercion or
extortion (1934 Act) or through extortion or robbery (1946 Act). The
Hobbs Act’s legislative history contains nothing to the contrary. That
the present statutory language is less clear than the 1946 version
does not reflect a congressional effort to redefine the crime. To the
contrary, Congress revised the Act’s language in 1948 as part of its
general revision of the Criminal Code, which “was not intended to
create new crimes but to recodify those then in existence.” Morissette
v. United States, 342 U. S. 246, 269, n. 28. The Court will not presume
the revision worked a change in the underlying substantive law absent
a clearly expressed intent to do so. Keene Corp. v. United States, 508
U. S. 200, 209. Here there is no evidence of any such intent. Finally,
respondents’ interpretation broadens the Hobbs Act’s scope well be-
yond what case law has assumed. It would federalize much ordinary
criminal behavior, ranging from simple assault to murder, that typi-
cally is the subject of state, not federal, prosecution. Congress did not
intend the Hobbs Act to have so broad a reach. See, e.g., NOW II, su-
pra, at 405. Other Courts of Appeals have rejected respondents’ con-
struction of the Act. And in 1994, Congress enacted the Freedom of
Access to Clinic Entrances Act, 18 U. S. C. §248(a)(3), which was aimed
specifically at the type of activity at issue in this litigation, thereby
suggesting that Congress did not believe that the Hobbs Act already
addressed that activity. Pp. 5–9.
(b) Respondents’ reliance on the canon of statutory construction fa-
voring interpretations that give a function to each word in a statute,
thereby avoiding linguistic superfluity, is misplaced. They claim
that, because the definitions of robbery or extortion (or related at-
tempts or conspiracies) already encompass robbery or extortion that
take place through acts of violence (or related threats), see
§§1951(b)(1) and (2), there would be no reason for §1951(a) to contain
its physical violence clause unless Congress intended to create a free-
standing offense. Petitioners, however, have found a small amount of
additional work for the clause to do. The Scheidler petitioners point
to a hypothetical mobster who threatens violence and demands pay-
ment from a business. Those threats constitute attempted extortion;
but the subsequent acts of violence against a noncomplying business
by the mobster’s subordinates might not constitute attempted extor-
tion or be punishable as a conspiracy to commit extortion if the sub-
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Syllabus

ordinates were not privy to the mobster’s plan, absent the specific
prohibition of physical violence in furtherance of a plan to commit ex-
tortion. The Government adds that the clause permits prosecutors to
bring multiple charges for the same conduct; e.g., a robber who in-
jured bystanders could be charged with the separate Hobbs Act
crimes of robbery and of using violence in furtherance of the robbery.
While this additional work is concededly small, Congress’ intent is
clear. Interpretive canons are designed to help courts determine
what Congress intended, not to lead them to interpret the law con-
trary to that intent. Pp. 9–11.
91 Fed. Appx. 510, reversed and remanded.

BREYER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which all other
Members joined, except ALITO, J., who took no part in the consideration
or decision of the cases.
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 1

Opinion of the Court

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order
that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________

Nos. 04–1244 and 04–1352
_________________

JOSEPH SCHEIDLER, ET AL., PETITIONERS
04–1244 v.
NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN, INC., ET AL.

OPERATION RESCUE, PETITIONER
04–1352 v.
NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN, INC., ET AL.
ON WRITS OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
[February 28, 2006]

JUSTICE BREYER delivered the opinion of the Court.
A section of Title 18 of the United States Code (called
the Hobbs Act) says that an individual commits a federal
crime if he or she “obstructs, delays, or affects commerce”
by (1) “robbery,” (2) “extortion,” or (3) “commit[ting] or
threaten[ing] physical violence to any person or property in
furtherance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation
of this section.” §1951(a) (emphasis added). The dispute
in these cases concerns the meaning of the underscored
words, in particular the words, “in furtherance of a plan or
purpose to do anything in violation of this section.” Does
this phrase refer to (violence committed pursuant to) those
plans or purposes that affect interstate commerce through
robbery or extortion? Or does it refer to (violence commit-
ted pursuant to) those plans or purposes that affect inter-
state commerce, plain and simple? If the former, the
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Opinion of the Court

statute governs only a limited subset of violent behavior,
namely, behavior connected with robbery and extortion. If
the latter, the statute governs a far broader range of hu-
man activity, namely, all violent actions (against persons
or property) that affect interstate commerce. In our view,
the former, more restrictive reading of the Act is the cor-
rect interpretation.
I
Petitioners are individuals (and organizations) who
engage in pro-life, anti-abortion protest activities. Re-
spondents are health care clinics that perform abortions
and a pro-choice national nonprofit organization that
supports the legal availability of abortions. In 1986, (pro-
choice) respondents, believing that (pro-life) petitioners
had tried to disrupt activities at health care clinics that
perform abortions through violence and various other
unlawful activities, brought this legal action, which sought
damages and an injunction forbidding (pro-life) petitioners
from engaging in such activities anywhere in the Nation.
Respondents based their legal claims upon the Hobbs
Act, certain other laws that forbid extortion, and a federal
antiracketeering statute, the Racketeer Influenced and
Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U. S. C. §1962.
Respondents argued that petitioners’ clinic-related protest
activities amounted in context to extortion. They added
that these extortionate acts created a “pattern of racket-
eering activity”—a pattern that RICO defines in terms of
certain predicate acts that include acts of extortion. See
§1961(1) (Supp. III). And they sought a permanent in-
junction, which they believed RICO authorized. See §1964
(2000 ed.).
Initially, the District Court dismissed their complaint.
It concluded that RICO requires proof that the alleged
criminal acts were motivated by an economic purpose—a
purpose that is lacking here. National Organization for
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Opinion of the Court

Women, Inc. v. Scheidler, 765 F. Supp. 937 (ND Ill. 1991).
The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed.
National Organization for Women, Inc. v. Scheidler, 968
F. 2d 612 (1992). But this Court held that the statute
“requires no such economic motive,” and therefore re-
versed the Court of Appeals and remanded the case for
further proceedings. National Organization for Women,
Inc. v. Scheidler, 510 U. S. 249, 252 (1994).
After trial, the jury found that petitioners had engaged in
a host of extortionate, or extortion-related, acts. It awarded
treble damages to two of the respondents (a matter not at
issue here) and the District Court entered a nationwide
injunction. See §§1964(a), (c). The Court of Appeals af-
firmed. 267 F. 3d 687 (2001).
This Court again reversed. Scheidler v. National Or-
ganization for Women, Inc., 537 U. S. 393 (2003) (NOW II).
We noted that the Hobbs Act defines “extortion” as neces-
sarily including the improper “ ‘obtaining of property from
another.’ ” Id., at 400 (quoting §1951(b)(2)). We pointed
out that the claimed “property” consisted of “a woman’s
right to seek medical services from a clinic, the right of the
doctors, nurses or other clinic staff to perform their jobs,
and the right of the clinics to provide medical services free
from wrongful threats, violence, coercion and fear.” 537
U. S., at 400–401 (internal quotation marks omitted). We
decided that “[w]hatever the outer boundaries may be, the
effort to characterize petitioners’ actions here as an ‘ob-
taining of property from’ respondents is well beyond
them.” Id., at 402. Accordingly, we held that “because
they did not ‘obtain’ property from respondents,” petition-
ers “did not commit extortion” as defined by the Hobbs
Act. Id., at 397. We found that the state extortion law
violations, and other extortion-related violations, were
flawed for the same reason and must also be set aside.
Id., at 410.
Our opinion concluded:
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Opinion of the Court

“Because all of the predicate acts supporting the jury’s
finding of a RICO violation must be reversed, the
judgment that petitioners violated RICO must also be
reversed. Without an underlying RICO violation, the
injunction issued by the District Court must necessar-
ily be vacated.” Id., at 411.
On remand, the Court of Appeals did not order the
District Court to terminate the cases or to vacate its in-
junction. Instead, the Court of Appeals considered re-
spondents’ argument that the jury’s RICO verdict rested
not only upon many instances of extortion-related conduct,
but also upon four instances (or threats) of physical vio-
lence unrelated to extortion. 91 Fed. Appx. 510, 512
(2004). The Court of Appeals decided that the parties had
not presented this theory to this Court and, as a result, we
had no occasion to consider whether these four acts alone
might constitute Hobbs Act violations (sufficient, as predi-
cate acts under RICO, to support the nationwide injunc-
tion). See id., at 513. The Court of Appeals remanded the
cases to the District Court to make that determination.
Ibid.
Petitioners sought certiorari to review this ruling. We
granted the writ to consider the following three questions:
(1) Whether the Court of Appeals improperly disre-
garded this Court’s mandate in NOW II by holding
that the injunction issued by the District Court might
not need to be vacated;
(2) Whether the Hobbs Act forbids violent conduct
unrelated to extortion or robbery; and
(3) Whether RICO authorizes a private party to ob-
tain an injunction.
We now answer the second question. We hold that physi-
cal violence unrelated to robbery or extortion falls outside
the scope of the Hobbs Act. And since our answer to the
second question requires an entry of judgment in petition-
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Opinion of the Court

ers’ favor, we shall not answer the first or third questions.
II
We first set forth the Hobbs Act’s text. The relevant
statutory section imposes criminal liability on
“[w]hoever in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or
affects commerce or the movement of any article or
commodity in commerce, by robbery or extortion or at-
tempts or conspires so to do, or commits or threatens
physical violence to any person or property in further-
ance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of
this section . . . .” 18 U. S. C. §1951(a) (emphasis
added).
The question, as we have said, concerns the meaning of
the phrase that modifies the term “physical violence,”
namely, the words “in furtherance of a plan or purpose to
do anything in violation of this section.” Do those words
refer to violence (1) that furthers a plan or purpose to
“affec[t] commerce . . . by robbery or extortion,” or to vio-
lence (2) that furthers a plan or purpose simply to “affec[t]
commerce”? We believe the former, more restrictive,
reading of the text—the reading that ties the violence to
robbery or extortion—is correct.
For one thing, the language of the statute makes the
more restrictive reading the more natural one. The text
that precedes the physical violence clause does not forbid
obstructing, delaying, or affecting commerce (or the move-
ment of any article or commodity in commerce); rather, it
forbids obstructing, delaying, or affecting commerce “by
robbery or extortion.” Ibid. (emphasis added). This lan-
guage means that behavior that obstructs, delays, or
affects commerce is a “violation” of the statute only if that
behavior also involves robbery or extortion (or related
attempts or conspiracies). Consequently, the reference in
the physical violence clause to actions or threats of vio-
6 SCHEIDLER v. NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN,

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Opinion of the Court

lence “in furtherance of a plan or purpose to do anything
in violation of this section” (emphasis added) would seem
to mean acts or threats of violence in furtherance of a plan
or purpose to engage in robbery or extortion, for that is the
only kind of behavior that the section otherwise makes a
violation.
This restrictive reading is further supported by the fact
that Congress often intends such statutory terms as “af-
fect commerce” or “in commerce” to be read as terms of art
connecting the congressional exercise of legislative author-
ity with the constitutional provision (here, the Commerce
Clause) that grants Congress that authority. See Allied-
Bruce Terminix Cos. v. Dobson, 513 U. S. 265, 273 (1995);
Russell v. United States, 471 U. S. 858, 859 (1985). Such
jurisdictional language may limit, but it will not primarily
define, the behavior that the statute calls a “violation” of
federal law. Cf. Jones v. United States, 529 U. S. 848, 854
(2000) (holding that by using the term “affecting . . . com-
merce,” “ ‘Congress did not define the crime described in
[18 U. S. C.] §844(i) as the explosion of a building whose
damage or destruction might affect interstate commerce,’ ”
and noting that the Court must look to other “qualifying
language” in the provision to define the offense).
For another thing, the statute’s history supports the more
restrictive reading. Congress enacted the Hobbs Act’s
predecessor in 1934. See Anti-Racketeering Act, ch. 569,
48 Stat. 979 (reproduced in Appendix, infra). That prede-
cessor Act prohibited coercion and extortion appropriately
connected with interstate commerce, and placed these
prohibitions in §§2(a) and 2(b), respectively. 48 Stat. 980.
The Act went on in §2(c) to impose criminal liability on
anyone who, in connection with interstate commerce,
“[c]ommits or threatens to commit an act of physical vio-
lence or physical injury to a person or property in further-
ance of a plan or purpose to violate sections (a) or (b).”
Ibid.; see also NOW II, 537 U. S., at 407. The 1934 Act
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Opinion of the Court

explicitly linked §2(c), the physical violence subsection,
with §§2(a) and 2(b). It thereby made crystal clear that
the physical violence that it prohibited was not violence in
furtherance of a plan to injure commerce, but violence in
furtherance of a plan to injure commerce through coercion
or extortion.
In 1946, Congress enacted a superseding law, namely,
the Hobbs Act. Ch. 537, 60 Stat. 420 (reproduced in Ap-
pendix, infra). The new law changed the old law in two
significant respects: It added robbery while omitting coer-
cion. NOW II, supra, at 407; see United States v. Culbert,
435 U. S. 371, 377 (1978) (“The bill that eventually became
the Hobbs Act . . . substituted specific prohibitions against
robbery and extortion for the Anti-Racketeering Act’s lan-
guage”). The new Act, like the old Act, was absolutely
explicit in respect to the point here at issue, the necessary
link between physical violence and other crimes (now
extortion and robbery).
The 1946 Hobbs Act reads as follows:
“SEC. 2. Whoever in any way or degree obstructs,
delays, or affects commerce, or the movement of any
article or commodity in commerce, by robbery or ex-
tortion, shall be guilty of a felony.
“SEC. 3. Whoever conspires with another or with
others, or acts in concert with another or with others
to do anything in violation of section 2 shall be guilty
of a felony.
“SEC. 4. Whoever attempts or participates in an at-
tempt to do anything in violation of section 2 shall be
guilty of a felony.
“SEC. 5. Whoever commits or threatens physical vio-
lence to any person or property in furtherance of a
plan or purpose to do anything in violation of section 2
shall be guilty of a felony.” 60 Stat. 420 (emphasis
added).
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Opinion of the Court

As §2 makes clear, the statute prohibits robbery and extor-
tion. As §5’s reference to §2 makes clear, the statute
prohibits violence only when that violence furthers a plan
or purpose to affect commerce by robbery or extortion.
Each of the statute’s other sections reflects the same
approach; each explicitly refers back to §2’s prohibition
against robbery and extortion.
The Act’s legislative history contains nothing to the
contrary. Indeed, the Committee Reports and floor de-
bates emphasized that “the purpose of the bill was ‘to
prevent anyone from obstructing, delaying, or affecting
commerce, or the movement of any article or commodity in
commerce by robbery or extortion as defined in the bill.’ ”
Culbert, supra, at 377 (quoting H. R. Rep. No. 238, 79th
Cong., 1st Sess., 9 (1945); emphasis added in Culbert); see
Culbert, supra, at 376–378 (discussing legislative history).
They nowhere suggested that Congress intended to make
physical violence a freestanding crime.
The present Hobbs Act language is less clear than the
1946 version. But the linguistic changes do not reflect a
congressional effort to redefine the crime. To the contrary,
Congress revised the Hobbs Act’s language in 1948 as part
of its general revision of the Criminal Code. That “1948
Revision was not intended to create new crimes but to
recodify those then in existence.” Morissette v. United
States, 342 U. S. 246, 269, n. 28 (1952). This Court has
written that it will “not presume that the revision worked a
change in the underlying substantive law ‘unless an intent
to make such [a] change[e] is clearly expressed.’ ” Keene
Corp. v. United States, 508 U. S. 200, 209 (1993) (alteration
made in Keene; quoting Fourco Glass Co. v. Transmirra
Products Corp., 353 U. S. 222, 227 (1957)). And here there
is no evidence of any such intent. Rather, the Reviser’s
Notes indicate that the linguistic changes to the Hobbs Act
simply amount to “changes in phraseology and arrangement
necessary to effect consolidation.” H. R. Rep. No. 304, 80th
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Opinion of the Court

Cong., 1st Sess., A131 (1947).
Finally, respondents’ Hobbs Act interpretation broadens
the Act’s scope well beyond what case law has assumed. It
would federalize much ordinary criminal behavior, ranging
from simple assault to murder, behavior that typically is
the subject of state, not federal, prosecution. Decisions of
this Court have assumed that Congress did not intend the
Hobbs Act to have so broad a reach. See NOW II, 537 U. S.,
at 405 (noting that the Hobbs Act embodied extortion,
which required the obtaining of property, not coercion); id.,
at 411 (GINSBURG, J., concurring) (coercion, which is not
covered by the Hobbs Act, “more accurately describes the
nature of petitioners’ [non-property-related] actions” (inter-
nal quotation marks omitted)); United States v. Enmons,
410 U. S. 396, 410 (1973) (Hobbs Act does not reach violent
activity by union members seeking higher wages because
such violence is not extortion and Congress did not intend
to “cover all overtly coercive conduct in the course of” a
labor dispute).
Not surprisingly, other Courts of Appeals that have
considered the question have rejected respondents’ con-
struction of the Act. See United States v. Yankowski, 184
F. 3d 1071 (CA9 1999); United States v. Franks, 511 F. 2d
25 (CA6 1975). And in 1994, Congress enacted a specific
statute aimed directly at the type of abortion clinic violence
and other activity at issue in this litigation, thereby sug-
gesting it did not believe that the Hobbs Act already ad-
dressed that activity. See Freedom of Access to Clinic
Entrances Act, 18 U. S. C. §248(a)(3) (imposing criminal
liability on anyone who “intentionally damages or destroys
the property of a facility, or attempts to do so, because such
facility provides reproductive health services”).
III
Respondents’ contrary claim rests primarily upon a
canon of statutory construction that favors interpretations
10 SCHEIDLER v. NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN,
INC.
Opinion of the Court

that give a function to each word in a statute, thereby
avoiding linguistic superfluity. See United States v. Me-
nasche, 348 U. S. 528, 538–539 (1955) (“It is our duty ‘to
give effect, if possible, to every clause and word of a stat-
ute’ ” (quoting Montclair v. Ramsdell, 107 U. S. 147, 152
(1883))). They claim that, because the definitions of rob-
bery or extortion (or related attempts or conspiracies)
already encompass robbery or extortion that takes place
through acts of violence (or related threats), “[t]here would
be no reason for the statute to include the clause prohibit-
ing violence and threats of violence” unless Congress
intended to create a freestanding offense. Brief for Re-
spondents 25; see 18 U. S. C. §1951(b)(1) (defining “rob-
bery” as the “unlawful taking or obtaining of personal
property . . . by means of actual or threatened force, or
violence” (emphasis added)); §1951(b)(2) (defining “extor-
tion” as “the obtaining of property from another . . . by
wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear”
(emphasis added)).
Petitioners, however, have found a small amount of
additional work for the words to do. Brief for Petitioners
Scheidler et al. 33–36; see also Brief for United States as
Amicus Curiae 11–12. The Scheidler petitioners point to a
hypothetical mobster who threatens violence and demands
payment from a business. Those threats constitute at-
tempted extortion; but the subsequent acts of violence
against a noncomplying business by the subordinates of
that mobster may not constitute attempted extortion and
may not be punishable as a conspiracy to commit extortion
if the subordinates were not privy to the mobster’s plan. A
specific prohibition of physical violence in furtherance of a
plan to commit extortion would bring the subordinates’
behavior within the statute’s coverage. The United States
adds that the physical violence clause permits prosecutors
to bring multiple charges for the same conduct. For in-
stance, the clause would apply to a defendant who injured
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Opinion of the Court

bystanders during a robbery, permitting the Government
to charge that defendant with the Hobbs Act crime of
robbery and the separate Hobbs Act crime of using vio-
lence in furtherance of the robbery. Tr. of Oral Arg. 22.
We concede that this additional work is small. But the
need for language to cover such instances, or perhaps
simply a desire to emphasize the problem of violence, led
Congress in the original 1946 version of the Hobbs Act to
make clear that the statute prohibited, not all physical
violence, but only physical violence in furtherance of a
plan or purpose to engage in robbery or extortion. See
supra, at 7–8. And it is similarly clear that Congress
intended to carry this view forward into the 1948 recodifi-
cation. See supra, at 8–9. The canons of interpretation
cannot lead us to a contrary conclusion. Those canons are
tools designed to help courts better determine what Con-
gress intended, not to lead courts to interpret the law
contrary to that intent. Chickasaw Nation v. United
States, 534 U. S. 84, 94 (2001) (noting that “canons are not
mandatory rules” but guides “designed to help judges
determine the Legislature’s intent,” and that “other cir-
cumstances evidencing congressional intent can overcome
their force”).
IV
We conclude that Congress did not intend to create a
freestanding physical violence offense in the Hobbs Act. It
did intend to forbid acts or threats of physical violence in
furtherance of a plan or purpose to engage in what the
statute refers to as robbery or extortion (and related at-
tempts or conspiracies). The judgment of the Court of
Appeals is reversed, and the cases are remanded for entry
of judgment for petitioners.
It is so ordered.
JUSTICE ALITO took no part in the consideration or
decision of these cases.
12 SCHEIDLER v. NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN,
INC.
Appendix to opinion of the Court

APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT

A

The Anti-Racketeering Act of 1934, ch. 569, 48 Stat. 979,
provided:
“AN ACT
“To protect trade and commerce against interference
by violence, threats, coercion, or intimidation.
“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Represen-
tatives of the United States of America in Congress as-
sembled, That the term ‘trade or commerce’, as used
herein, is defined to mean trade or commerce between
any States, with foreign nations, in the District of Co-
lumbia, in any Territory of the United States, between
any such Territory or the District of Columbia and
any State or other Territory, and all other trade or
commerce over which the United States has constitu-
tional jurisdiction.
“SEC. 2. Any person who, in connection with or in
relation to any act in any way or in any degree affect-
ing trade or commerce or any article or commodity
moving or about to move in trade or commerce—
“(a) Obtains or attempts to obtain, by the use of or
attempt to use or threat to use force, violence, or coer-
cion, the payment of money or other valuable consid-
erations, or the purchase or rental of property or pro-
tective services, not including, however, the payment
of wages of a bona-fide employer to a bona-fide em-
ployee; or
“(b) Obtains the property of another, with his con-
sent, induced by wrongful use of force or fear, or un-
der color of official right; or
“(c) Commits or threatens to commit an act of physi-
cal violence or physical injury to a person or property
in furtherance of a plan or purpose to violate sections
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Appendix to opinion of the Court

(a) or (b); or
“(d) Conspires or acts concertedly with any other
person or persons to commit any of the foregoing acts;
shall, upon conviction thereof, be guilty of a felony
and shall be punished by imprisonment from one to
ten years or by a fine of $10,000, or both.
“SEC. 3. (a) As used in this Act the term ‘wrongful’
means in violation of the criminal laws of the United
States or of any State or Territory.
“(b) The terms ‘property’, ‘money’, or ‘valuable con-
siderations’ used herein shall not be deemed to in-
clude wages paid by a bona-fide employer to a bona-
fide employee.”
B
Title I of The Hobbs Anti-Racketeering Act of 1946, ch.
537, 60 Stat. 420, provided:
“SEC. 1. As used in this title—
“(a) The term ‘commerce’ means (1) commerce be-
tween any point in a State, Territory, or the District of
Columbia and any point outside thereof, or between
points within the same State, Territory, or the Dis-
trict of Columbia but through any place outside
thereof, and (2) commerce within the District of Co-
lumbia or any Territory, and (3) all other commerce
over which the United States has jurisdiction; and the
term ‘Territory’ means any Territory or possession of
the United States.
“(b) The term ‘robbery’ means the unlawful taking
or obtaining of personal property, from the person or
in the presence of another, against his will, by means
of actual or threatened force, or violence, or fear of in-
jury, immediate or future, to his person or property,
or property in his custody or possession, or the person
or property of a relative or member of his family or
anyone in his company at the time of the taking or
obtaining.
14 SCHEIDLER v. NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN,
INC.
Appendix to opinion of the Court

“(c) The term ‘extortion’ means the obtaining of
property from another, with his consent, induced by
wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or
fear, or under color of official right.
“SEC. 2. Whoever in any way or degree obstructs,
delays, or affects commerce, or the movement of any
article or commodity in commerce, by robbery or ex-
tortion, shall be guilty of a felony.
“SEC. 3. Whoever conspires with another or with
others, or acts in concert with another or with others
to do anything in violation of section 2 shall be guilty
of a felony.
“SEC. 4. Whoever attempts or participates in an at-
tempt to do anything in violation of section 2 shall be
guilty of a felony.
“SEC. 5. Whoever commits or threatens physical vio-
lence to any person or property in furtherance of a
plan or purpose to do anything in violation of section 2
shall be guilty of a felony.
“SEC. 6. Whoever violates any section of this title
shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by impris-
onment for not more than twenty years or by a fine of
not more than $10,000, or both.”
C
The Hobbs Act, 18 U. S. C. §1951, as amended in 1948,
provides:
“(a) Whoever in any way or degree obstructs, delays,
or affects commerce or the movement of any article or
commodity in commerce, by robbery or extortion or at-
tempts or conspires so to do, or commits or threatens
physical violence to any person or property in further-
ance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of
this section shall be fined under this title or impris-
oned not more than twenty years, or both.
“(b) As used in this section—
 Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 15

Appendix to opinion of the Court

“(1) The term ‘robbery’ means the unlawful tak-
ing or obtaining of personal property from the person
or in the presence of another, against his will, by
means of actual or threatened force, or violence, or
fear of injury, immediate or future, to his person or
property, or property in his custody or possession, or
the person or property of a relative or member of his
family or of anyone in his company at the time of the
taking or obtaining.
“(2) The term ‘extortion’ means the obtaining of
property from another, with his consent, induced by
wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or
fear, or under color of official right.
“(3) The term ‘commerce’ means commerce within
the District of Columbia, or any Territory or Posses-
sion of the United States; all commerce between any
point in a State, Territory, Possession, or the District
of Columbia and any point outside thereof; all com-
merce between points within the same State through
any place outside such State; and all other commerce
over which the United States has jurisdiction.
“(c) This section shall not be construed to repeal,
modify or affect section 17 of Title 15, section 52, 101–
115, 151–166 of Title 29 or sections 151–188 of Title
45.”