The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction of Jose Lopez for (1) conspiring to encourage or induce an alien to enter the United States, (2) encouraging or inducing 17 aliens to enter the United States, and (3) and knowingly aiding or assisting an alien, who was inadmissible due to a prior aggravated felony conviction, to enter the United States.

In order to uphold the convictions the court found that “encouraging or inducing an alien” under 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) included “helping” an alien to illegally enter the United States. Initially the trial judge refused the request of the government to define “encouraging or inducing.” But while deliberating, the jury sent a note requesting a definition and the judge gave the government’s proposed dictionary definition:

In response to your question concerning “encourage” and “induce,” I instruct you on the below dictionary definitions in conjunction with all of the Court’s instructions in your deliberations.

To “encourage” means to knowingly instigate, to incite to action, to give courage to, to inspirit, to embolden, to raise confidence, to help, to forward, and/or to advise.

To “induce” means to knowingly bring on or about, to affect, cause to influence an act or course of conduct, lead by persuasion or reasoning, incite by motives, and/or to prevail on.

The evidence at trial showed that Lopez accompanied two other men to the Bahamas, where they picked up 19 aliens. It did not show that Lopez at any time spoke with the aliens. Nor did it show that he went with the intent to bring aliens into the country or that he even knew that the aliens were illegal until after the boat left the Bahamas. It did show that while he did not own the boat he steered the boat most of the time.

But as the dissent points out to define “encourage” as “to help” allows Lopez to be convicted for steering the boat. Yet steering the boat is a violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(2) which prohibits transportation of illegal aliens. Laws are to be read in such a way that one section of a law does not duplicate another. Furthermore since words should be given there normal meaning and since “to help” is one of the last in a series of definitions for “encourage” in most dictionaries the dissent by Judge Barkett states

The majority’s decision eschews the ordinary and common sense meaning of the word “encourage” in favor of the most general and least meaningful possible interpretation, namely, “to help.”