Reading and Interpreting Statutes Topic 7: Let’s Practice (Steps 4 and 5)

Today, we are going to pick up where we left off in the last episode, where commercial airline pilot Sean Fitzgerald showed up for work “rip-roaring drunk” and engaged in pre-flight work before he was arrested. The statute he is alleged to have violated is 18 U.S.C. § 343, and we are now at step 4, which requires us to look for the statute’s meaning using the text and determine if the language is ambiguous or vague.