The US Supreme Court ruled Thursday in United States v. Briggs that the rape convictions of three military members were timely under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).

Justice Samuel Alito authored the opinion. He noted that a plain reading of the UCMJ would suggest that the former service members’ convictions were untimely. However, he clarified that the court did not determine its decision on a plain reading but rather in the context of the entire UCMJ itself:

The question before us is important, and there are reasonable arguments on both sides, but resolving the question does not require lengthy analysis. During the period at issue, Article 120(a) of the UCMJ provided that rape could be “punished by death,” and Article 43(a), which was amended in 1986, provided that an offense “punishable by death” could be tried and punished “at any time without limitation[.”] The crux of the question before us is the meaning of the phrase “punishable by death” in the latter provision. Respondents contend—and the CAAF held—that the phrase means capable of punishment by death when all applicable law is taken into account. Because this Court held in Coker v. Georgia that the Eighth Amendment forbids a death sentence for the rape of an adult woman, respondents argue that they could not, in fact, have been sentenced to death, and therefore the statute of limitations for their crimes. By contrast, the Government argues that Article 43(a)’s reference to “punishable by death” means capable of punishment by death under the penalty provisions of the UCMJ, and since Article 120(a) provided (despite Coker) that rape could be punished by death, it follows that there was no time limit for filing rape charges against respondents. The interpretation advocated by respondents and adopted by the CAAF finds support at first blush in contemporaneous dictionary definitions of the term “punishable.” But upon inspection, definitions shed little light on the dispute because they largely re-raise the question over which the parties divide: capable of being punished under what law? In essence, the Government sees the term “punishable” in Article 43(a) as something of a term of art that is defined by the specification of the punishments set out in the penalty provisions of the UCMJ. On balance, we find the Government’s interpretation more persuasive. The meaning of a statement often turns on the context in which it is made, and that is no less true of statutory language. And in these cases, context is determinative. The phrase “punishable by death” appears in a statute of limitations provision for prosecutions under the UCMJ, and for at least three reasons, that context weighs heavily in favor of the Government’s interpretation.

The case involves three former military service members who individually committed rapes during their services in 1998, 2000 and 2005, respectively. At the time, the UCMJ permitted a death sentence for committing rape. However, a 1977 Supreme Court case had held that the death penalty for a rape of an adult woman was unconstitutional. In the UCMJ, any crime punishable by death can be prosecuted “at any time without any limitation.” Outside of that provision on crimes punishable by death, the UCMJ provides a five-year statute of limitation for prosecuting crimes.

The three former service members in this case were prosecuted and convicted of rape beyond five years of them committing the rape. They argued that the five-year statute of limitation extended to the rapes that they committed, because a death sentence for rape was unconstitutional. Based on this, they argued that prosecution “at any time without any limitation” for crimes punishable by death under the UCMJ did not extend to rape cases. The government argued, however, that the five-year statute of limitation did not extend to rapes and that the convictions were proper, because the “without any limitation” provision still stood over rape convictions despite the unconstitutionality of a death sentence for rape. The court agreed with the government’s argument and upheld the convictions as timely.