16 U.S.C. § 1859
Section 1859 · Criminal offenses
Amended 5 times on record
Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case United States v. Kaiyo Maru Number 53 (1980)
Most recently applied in 817 F. Supp. 2d 1 - United States v. Cusick (August 2011)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
A person is guilty of an offense if he commits any act prohibited by—
(1) section 1857(1)(D), (E), (F), (H), (I), or (L) of this title; or
(2) section 1857(2) of this title.
Any offense described in subsection (a)(1) of this section is punishable by a fine of not more than $100,000, or imprisonment for not more than 6 months, or both; except that if in the commission of any such offense the person uses a dangerous weapon, engages in conduct that causes bodily injury to any observer described in section 1857(1)(L) of this title or any officer authorized to enforce the provisions of this chapter (as provided for in section 1861 of this title), or places any such observer or officer in fear of imminent bodily injury, the offense is punishable by a fine of not more than $200,000, or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both. Any offense described in subsection (a)(2) of this section is punishable by a fine of not more than $200,000.
There is Federal jurisdiction over any offense described in this section.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1990—Subsec. (a)(1). Pub. L. 101–627, §115(a), amended par. (1) generally, substituting “(I), or (L)” for “or (I)”.
Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 101–627, §115(b), substituted “$100,000” for “$50,000”, substituted “$200,000” for “$100,000” in two places, and inserted “any observer described in section 1857(1)(L) of this title or” after “injury to” and “observer or” before “officer in fear”.
1987—Subsec. (a)(1). Pub. L. 100–66 substituted “(I)” for “(J)”.
1986—Subsec. (a)(1). Pub. L. 99–659 substituted “(H), or (J)” for “or (H)”.
1983—Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 97–453 struck out “, or imprisonment for not more than 1 year, or both” after “subsection (a)(2) of this section is punishable by a fine of not more than $100,000”.
Effective Date of 1983 Amendment
Section 11(b) of Pub. L. 97–453 provided that: “The amendment made by subsection (a) [amending this section] applies with respect to offenses committed under section 309 [this section] on or after the date of the enactment of this Act [Jan. 12, 1983].”
Effective Date
For effective date of this subchapter, see section 312 of Pub. L. 94–265, set out as a note under section 1857 of this title.