Wiley Blount Rutledge

“ The construction, like the preferred one, is a construction of necessity, to be justified if at all only by the fact that without it the statute becomes unenforceable for the offenses of concealing or harboring.
If there were less inconsistency among the tentative possibilities put forward or greater consistency with the section's wording implicit in one, resolution of the difficulty by judicial action would involve a less wide departure from the common function of judicial interpretation of statutes than is actually required by this case. But here the task is too large. ”

“ It is rather that the choice the Government asks us to make is so broad and so deep, resting among such equally tenable though inconsistent possibilities, that we have no business to make it at all.
Even in criminal matters a strong case would be required to bring about the result appellee seeks. For, where Congress has exhibited clearly the purpose to proscribe conduct within its power to make criminal and has not altogether omitted provision for penalty, every reasonable presumption attaches to the proscription to require the courts to make it effective in accord with the evident purpose. ”

“ It concerns not so much Congress' intention to make concealing or harboring criminal as it does the penalty to be applied to those offenses including attempts. The choice, as might appear on glancing at the statute, is not simply between no penalty, at the one extreme, and, at the other, fine plus imprisonment up to the specified maxima for each alien concealed or harbored. The problem is rather one of multiple choice, presenting at least three, and perhaps four, possible yet inconsistent answers on the statute's wording. ”