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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that
corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 91-8199
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THOMAS LEE DEAL, PETITIONER v.
UNITED STATES
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the fifth circuit
[May 17, 1993]

  Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court.
  Between January and April 1990, petitioner committed
six bank robberies on six different dates in the Houston,
Texas area.  In each robbery, he used a gun.  Petitioner
was convicted of six counts of bank robbery, 18 U. S. C.
2113(a) and (d), six counts of carrying and using a
firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, 18
U. S. C. 924(c), and one count of being a felon in posses-
sion of firearms, 18 U. S. C. 922(g).  Title 18 U. S. C.
924(c)(1) provides:
      -Whoever, during and in relation to any crime of
violence . . . uses or carries a firearm, shall, in
addition to the punishment provided for such crime
of violence . . . , be sentenced to imprisonment for
five years . . . .  In the case of his second or subse-
quent conviction under this subsection, such person
shall be sentenced to imprisonment for twenty years
. . . .-
The United States District Court for the Southern District
of Texas sentenced petitioner to 5 years imprisonment on
the first 924(c)(1) count and to 20 years on each of the
other five 924(c)(1) counts, the terms to run consecu-
tively.  The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit affirmed the convictions and sentence.  954 F. 2d
262 (1992).  We granted certiorari on the question
whether petitioner's second through sixth convictions
under 924(c)(1) in this single proceeding arose -[i]n the
case of his second or subsequent conviction- within the
meaning of 924(c)(1).  506 U. S. ___ (1992).
  Petitioner contends that the language of 924(c)(1) is
facially ambiguous, and should therefore be construed in
his favor pursuant to the rule of lenity.  His principal
argument in this regard is that the word -conviction- can,
according to the dictionary, have two meanings, -either
the return of a jury verdict of guilt or the entry of a final
judgment on that verdict,- Brief for Petitioner 4; and that
the phrase -second or subsequent conviction- could there-
fore -mean `an additional finding of guilt rendered at any
time'- (which would include petitioner's convictions on the
second through sixth counts in the single proceeding here)
or -`a judgment of conviction entered at a later time,'-
(which would not include those convictions, since the
District Court entered only a single judgment on all of the
counts), id., at 7.
  It is certainly correct that the word -conviction- can
mean either the finding of guilt or the entry of a final
judgment on that finding.  The word has many other
meanings as well, including -[a]ct of convincing of error,
or of compelling the admission of a truth-; -[s]tate of
being convinced; esp., state of being convicted of sin, or
by one's conscience-; -[a] strong persuasion or belief; as,
to live up to one's convictions; an intensity of thorough
conviction.-  Webster's New International Dictionary 584
(2d ed. 1950).  But of course susceptibility of all of these
meanings does not render the word -conviction,- whenever
it is used, ambiguous; all but one of the meanings is
ordinarily eliminated by context.  There is not the slight-
est doubt, for example, that 924(c)(1), which deals with
punishment in this world rather than the next, does not
use -conviction- to mean the state of being convicted of
sin.  Petitioner's contention overlooks, we think, this
fundamental principle of statutory construction (and,
indeed, of language itself) that the meaning of a word
cannot be determined in isolation, but must be drawn
from the context in which it is used.  See King v. St.
Vincent's Hosp., 502 U. S. ___, ___ (1991); Davis v.
Michigan Dept. of Treasury, 489 U. S. 803, 809 (1989);
United States v. Morton, 467 U. S. 822, 828 (1984).
  In the context of 924(c)(1), we think it unambiguous
that -conviction- refers to the finding of guilt by a judge
or jury that necessarily precedes the entry of a final
judgment of conviction.  A judgment of conviction includes
both the adjudication of guilt and the sentence.  See Fed.
Rule Crim. Proc. 32(b)(1) (-A judgment of conviction shall
set forth the plea, the verdict or findings, and the adjudi-
cation and sentence- (emphasis added)); see also Black's
Law Dictionary 843 (6th ed. 1990) (quoting Rule 32(b)(1)
in defining -judgment of conviction-).  Thus, if -conviction-
in 924(c)(1) meant -judgment of conviction,- the provision
would be incoherent, prescribing that a sentence which
has already been imposed (the defendant's second or
subsequent -conviction-) shall be 5 or 20 years longer than
it was.
  Petitioner contends that this absurd result is avoided
by the -[i]n the case of- language at the beginning of the
provision.  He maintains that a case is the -case of [a
defendant's] second or subsequent- entry of judgment of
conviction even before the court has entered that judgment
of conviction and even before the court has imposed the
sentence that is the prerequisite to the entry of judgment
of conviction.  We think not.  If -conviction- meant -entry
of judgment of conviction,- a -case- would surely not be
the -case of his second or subsequent conviction- until
that judgment of conviction was entered, by which time
a lower sentence than that which 924(c)(1) requires
would already have been imposed.  And more fundamen-
tally still, petitioner's contention displays once again the
regrettable penchant for construing words in isolation.
The word -case- can assuredly refer to a legal proceeding,
and if the phrase -in the case of- is followed by a name,
such as -Marbury v. Madison,- that is the apparent
meaning.  When followed by an act or event, however, -in
the case of- normally means -in the event of--and we
think that is its meaning here.
  The sentence of 924(c)(1) that immediately follows the
one at issue here confirms our reading of the term -con-
viction.-  That sentence provides:  -Notwithstanding any
other provision of law, the court shall not place on proba-
tion or suspend the sentence of any person convicted of
a violation of this subsection.-  That provision, like the
one before us in this case, is obviously meant to control
the terms of a sentence yet to be imposed.  But if we give
the term -convicted- a meaning similar to what petitioner
contends is meant by -conviction--as connoting, that
is, the entry of judgment, which includes sentence-we
once again confront a situation in which the prescription
of the terms of a sentence cannot be effective until it is
too late, i.e., until after the sentence has already been
pronounced.
  We are also confirmed in our conclusion by the recogni-
tion that petitioner's reading would give a prosecutor
unreviewable discretion either to impose or to waive the
enhanced sentencing provisions of 924(c)(1) by opting to
charge and try the defendant either in separate prosecu-
tions or under a multicount indictment.  Although the
present prosecution would not have permitted enhanced
sentencing, if the same charges had been divided into six
separate prosecutions for the six separate bank robberies,
enhanced sentencing would clearly have been required.
We are not disposed to give the statute a meaning that
produces such strange consequences.
  The dissent contends that 924(c)(1) must be read to
impose the enhanced sentence only for an offense commit-
ted after a previous sentence has become final.  Though
this interpretation was not mentioned in petitioner's
briefs, and was put forward only as a fall-back position
in petitioner's oral argument, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 4, the
dissent thinks it so -obvious,- post, at 6, that our rejection
of it constitutes a triumph of -textualism- over -common
sense,- post, at 10, and the result of -an elaborate exercise
in sentence-parsing,- post, at 10.  We note, to begin with,
that most of the textual distinctions made in this opin-
ion-all of them up to this point-respond to the elaborate
principal argument of petitioner that -conviction- means
-entry of judgment.-  It takes not much -sentence-parsing-
to reject the quite different argument of the dissent that
the terms -subsequent offense- and -second or subsequent
conviction- mean exactly the same thing, so that -second
conviction- means -first offense after an earlier conviction.-
  No one can disagree with the dissent's assertion that
-Congress sometimes uses slightly different language to
convey the same message,- post, at 1-but when it does
so it uses -slightly different language- that means the
same thing.  -Member of the House- instead of -Represen-
tative,- for example.  Or -criminal offense- instead of
-crime.-  But to say that -subsequent offense- means the
same thing as -second or subsequent conviction- requires
a degree of verbal know-nothingism that would render
government by legislation quite impossible.  Under the
terminology -second or subsequent conviction,- in the
context at issue here, it is entirely clear (without any
-sentence-parsing-) that a defendant convicted of a crime
committed in 1992, who has previously been convicted of
a crime committed in 1993, would receive the enhanced
sentence.
  The dissent quotes extensively from Gonzalez v. United
States, 224 F. 2d 431 (CA1 1955).  See post, at 2-3.  But
far from supporting the -text-insensitive- approach favored
by the dissent, that case acknowledges that -[i]n constru-
ing subsequent offender statutes . . . the decisions of the
courts have varied depending upon the particular statute
involved.-  224 F. 2d, at 434.  It says, as the dissent
points out, that federal courts have -uniformly- held it to
be the rule that a second offense can occur only after
conviction for the first.  Ibid.  But those holdings were not
arrived at in disregard of the statutory text.  To the
contrary, as Gonzalez goes on to explain:
-`It cannot legally be known that an offense has been
committed until there has been a conviction.  A
second offense, as used in the the criminal statutes,
is one that has been committed after conviction for a
first offense.'-  Ibid. (quoting Holst v. Owens, 24 F. 2d
100, 101 (CA5 1928)).
The present statute, however, does not use the term
-offense,- so it cannot possibly be said that it requires a
criminal act after the first conviction.  What it requires
is a conviction after the first conviction.  There is utterly
no ambiguity in that, and hence no occasion to invoke the
rule of lenity.  (The erroneous lower-court decisions cited
by the dissent, see post, at 6-8, do not alter this assess-
ment; judges cannot cause a clear text to become ambigu-
ous by ignoring it.)
  In the end, nothing but personal intuition supports the
dissent's contention that the statute is directed at those
who -`failed to learn their lessons from the initial punish-
ment,'- post, at 10 (quoting United States v. Neal, 976
F. 2d 601, 603 (CA9 1992) (Fletcher, J., dissenting)).  Like
most intuitions, it finds Congress to have intended what
the intuitor thinks Congress ought to intend.  And like
most intuitions, it is not very precise.  -[F]ailed to learn
their lessons from the initial punishment- would seem to
suggest that the serving of the punishment, rather than
the mere pronouncement of it, is necessary before the
repeat criminal will be deemed an inadequate student-a
position that certainly appeals to -common sense,- if not
to text.  Elsewhere, however, the dissent says that the
lesson is taught once -an earlier conviction has become
final,- post, at 6-so that the felon who escapes during a
trial that results in a conviction becomes eligible for
enhanced punishment for his later crimes, though he has
seemingly been taught no lesson except that the law is
easy to beat.  But no matter.  Once text is abandoned,
one intuition will serve as well as the other.  We choose
to follow the language of the statute, which gives no
indication that punishment of those who fail to learn the
-lesson- of prior conviction or of prior punishment is the
sole purpose of 924(c)(1), to the exclusion of other penal
goals such as taking repeat offenders off the streets for
especially long periods, or simply visiting society's retribu-
tion upon repeat offenders more severely.  We do not
agree with the dissent's suggestion that these goals defy
-common sense.-  It seems to us eminently sensible to
punish the second murder, for example, with life in prison
rather than a term of years-whether or not conviction of
the first murder (or completion of the sentence for the
first murder) has yet occurred.
  Finally, we need not tarry over petitioner's contention
that the rule of lenity is called for because his 105-year
sentence -is so glaringly unjust that the Court cannot but
question whether Congress intended such an application
of the phrase, `in the case of his second or subsequent
conviction.'-  Brief for Petitioner 24.  Even under the
dissent's reading of 924(c)(1), some criminals whose only
offenses consist of six armed bank robberies would receive
a total sentence of 105 years in prison.  We see no reason
why it is -glaringly unjust- that petitioner be treated
similarly here, simply because he managed to evade
detection, prosecution, and conviction for the first five
offenses and was ultimately tried for all six in a single
proceeding.
  The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.

                                      It is so ordered.