18 U.S.C. § 2155
Section 2155 · Destruction of national-defense materials, national-defense premises, or national-defense utilities
Amended 5 times on record
Applied in 26 court decisions — leading case United States v. Odeh (2008)
Most recently applied in United States v. Fawwaz (June 2017)
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) Whoever, with intent to injure, interfere with, or obstruct the national defense of the United States, willfully injures, destroys, contaminates or infects, or attempts to so injure, destroy, contaminate or infect any national-defense material, national-defense premises, or national-defense utilities, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and, if death results to any person, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life.
(b) If two or more persons conspire to violate this section, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each of the parties to such conspiracy shall be punished as provided in subsection (a) of this section.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Historical and Revision Notes
Based on section 105 of title 50, U.S.C., 1940 ed., War and National Defense (Apr. 20, 1918, ch. 59, §5, as added Nov. 30, 1940, ch. 926, 54 Stat. 1221).
Words “upon conviction thereof” were omitted as unnecessary, since punishment cannot be imposed until a conviction is secured.
Minor changes were made in phraseology.
Amendments
2001—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 107–56 substituted “20 years” for “ten years” and inserted “, and, if death results to any person, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life” before period at end.
1996—Pub. L. 104–294 substituted “, or” for “or” in section catchline.
1994—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 103–322 substituted “fined under this title” for “fined not more than $10,000”.
1954—Act Sept. 3, 1954, inserted conspiracy provisions.