F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
PUBLISH
June 20, 2006
UNITED STATES CO URT O F APPEALS Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
TENTH CIRCUIT
U N ITED STA TES O F A M ER ICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v. No. 05-3169
C ARL A . PA TTO N ,
Defendant-Appellant.
A PPE AL FR OM T HE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR T HE DISTRICT OF KANSAS
(D.C. NO . 04-10170-01)
Timothy J. Henry, Federal Public Defender Office, W ichita, Kansas for
Defendant-Appellant.
Brent I. Anderson, Assistant United States Attorney, (Eric F. M elgren, United
States Attorney, with him on the brief) Office of the United States Attorney,
W ichita, Kansas, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Before M cCO NNELL and B ALDOCK , Circuit Judges, and ARM IJO , District
Judge. *
M cCO NNELL, Circuit Judge.
*
The Honorable M . Christina Armijo, United States District Court, District
of New M exico, sitting by designation.
It may seem like common sense to prohibit felons’ possession of
bulletproof vests and other forms of body armor, w hich facilitate violent crime.
Indeed, thirty-one states already do so. But the Constitution does not grant the
federal government a police power or a general authority to combat violent crime.
See Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 W heat.) 264, 426 (1821) (M arshall, C.J.)
(“Congress has . . . no general right to punish murder committed within any of the
States.”). The myriad provisions in the federal criminal code are justified, as a
constitutional matter, only by reference to Congress’s enumerated powers. W e
are required in this case to determine whether Congress has authority under its
power “[t]o regulate Commerce . . . among the Several states,” U.S. Const. art. I,
§ 8, cl. 3, to prohibit the intrastate possession by a felon of a bulletproof vest, in
the absence of any commercial transaction or any evidence of a connection to
comm ercial activity other than the fact that, before it was lawfully purchased by
the defendant, the vest had been sold across a state line.
Deciding this question requires us to choose between following an older
precedent of the Supreme Court and applying the Court’s current three-part test
for determining the reach of the Commerce Clause. W e follow the older
precedent directly on point, conclude that Congress does have this authority, and
A FFIR M the conviction.
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I. Factual and Procedural Background
Defendant-Appellant Carl Patton was once a member of the Junior Boys
gang in northeast W ichita, Kansas. He has two prior state-court felony
convictions for gang-related violence. In 1990 he pleaded guilty to attempted
aggravated battery in the shooting of a member of a rival gang, the Crips, and in
1994 he was convicted of aggravated assault, discharge of a firearm at an
occupied building, and criminal possession of a firearm, all of which stemmed
from an altercation with two members of another competing gang, the Bloods.
In O ctober 2001, after serving his sentence for the second felony, M r.
Patton was paroled to his grandparents’ house in his old neighborhood in W ichita.
According to his story, 1 M r. Patton wanted to be paroled to Connecticut, where
his then-girlfriend lived and where he would be far removed from the gang
activity with which he had formerly been associated. He was required to return to
northeast W ichita, however, because under parole rules he could be paroled only
to live with a family member or a spouse. That placed him in continual danger.
Even though (according to his story) M r. Patton had learned his lesson and
abandoned his life of gang violence, his former associates and rival gang
members still had scores to settle. In late 2001, for example, two members of the
1
For purposes of adjudicating the issues in this case, the district court
accepted and the government does not contest M r. Patton’s account of the factual
background.
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Bloods (one armed) approached him at a gas station. M r. Patton escaped
unharmed. In M ay 2002, members of the Bloods carried out a drive-by shooting
on the 2300 block of North Kansas Street in W ichita, firing at M r. Patton and
others who were in the building. Because of the danger to his life, M r. Patton has
refused to allow his children or his grandparents to ride in the same car w ith him.
In the fall of 2001, after his encounter with the armed gang member at the
gas station, M r. Patton purchased a bulletproof vest that had been manufactured in
California. At that time, both his purchase and his possession of the vest were
lawful under federal and state law. According to M r. Patton, during his parole he
was not a gang member and wore the vest solely to protect himself.
On November 21, 2003, officers from the W ichita Police Department
investigated a domestic disturbance call involving M r. Patton. W hen the officers
arrived, they found no weapons in M r. Patton’s possession but did discover that
he was wearing a bulletproof vest. On July 29, 2004, M r. Patton was charged
with being a felon in possession of body armor, in violation of a recently enacted
statute, 18 U.S.C. § 931. On October 14, 2004, M r. Patton moved to dismiss the
indictment on the grounds that it violated the Commerce and Due Process Clauses
of the federal Constitution. The district court denied the motion on November 16.
The next day, a superseding indictment added charges that M r. Patton had
possessed the body armor “in and affecting comm erce” and that the body armor
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was a bulletproof vest “that was not produced in the State of Kansas and was sold
or offered for sale in interstate or foreign comm erce.” R. Vol. I, Doc. 19.
M r. Patton also raised the defense of necessity. On January 19, 2005, after
a hearing, the district court found that M r. Patton had failed to meet the
requirements for a necessity defense. W ithin a week, M r. Patton entered a
conditional guilty plea, preserving his right to appeal both the denial of his
motion to dismiss the indictment and the grant of the government’s motion in
limine to exclude a necessity defense. On April 6, 2005, M r. Patton was
sentenced to eighteen months in federal prison and one year of supervised release.
He now appeals the issues preserved in the conditional plea.
II. The Com merce C lause
M r. Patton argues first that he was convicted under a statute that exceeds
Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause. W e review the constitutionality
of the statute de novo. United States v. Jeronimo-Bautista, 425 F.3d 1266, 1268-
69 (10th Cir. 2005). The statute is 18 U.S.C. § 931, which m akes it a crime “for a
person to purchase, own, or possess body armor, if that person has been convicted
of a felony” that qualifies as a crime of violence under 18 U.S.C. § 16. 18 U.S.C.
§ 931(a). “B ody armor” is defined as “any product sold or offered for sale, in
interstate or foreign commerce, as personal protective body covering intended to
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protect against gunfire.” Id. § 921(a)(35). 2 W e stress that M r. Patton was
convicted of mere possession of the body armor— not purchase, not sale, not
commercial use. This possession occurred entirely within the borders of the State
of Kansas. The statute makes no reference to any effect M r. Patton’s possession
or use of the bulletproof vest might have had on interstate commerce. The only
connection between his possession and interstate commerce is the fact that, prior
to his purchase, the bulletproof vest was manufactured in another state and moved
across state lines. M oreover, at the time M r. Patton acquired the vest in 2001,
Congress had not yet made the purchase or possession of body armor by felons a
federal crime. See James Guelff and Chris M cCurley Body Armor A ct of 2002, §
11009(e)(2)(A), Pub. L. No. 107-273, Div. C, 116 Stat. 1819, 1821 (codified at 18
U.S.C. § 931) (criminalizing the possession of body armor by felons as of Nov. 2,
2002). It may also be significant that during the incident for which M r. Patton
was prosecuted, he was not armed; for all that appears, he was wearing the
bulletproof vest solely in self-defense against attacks motivated by his former
association with the Junior Boys gang.
2
W e surmise that M r. Patton is bringing both a facial challenge to the
statute to the extent it forbids possession and an as-applied challenge to a ban on
M r. Patton’s “[s]imple possession of a bullet-proof vest that has come to rest in
Kansas, and which has long since left the channels of commerce.” Br. for
Appellant 13. M r. Patton does not challenge the statute as it applies to purchases.
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The Supreme Court has articulated “three general categories of regulation
in which Congress is authorized to engage under its commerce power.” Gonzales
v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 125 S. Ct. 2195, 2205 (2005). These are “the channels of
interstate commerce”; “the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, and persons
or things in interstate commerce”; and “activities that substantially affect
interstate commerce.” Id.; see also United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 558
(1995); Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 150 (1971). W e conclude that the
statute prohibiting possession of body armor by a felon does not fit within any of
the three categories, but we uphold it under the authority of other precedents from
the Supreme Court and from this Court.
A . Channels of Interstate Commerce
First, Congress may regulate the “channels of interstate commerce.” Lopez,
514 U.S. at 558; Raich, 125 S. Ct. at 2205. Under this category, Congress
regulates not conduct related to interstate commerce but rather interstate
comm erce itself— barring from the channels of interstate commerce a class of
goods or people. See United States v. Rybar, 103 F.3d 273, 288-89 (3d Cir. 1996)
(Alito, J., dissenting) (describing the first category as concerning “Congress’s
power to regulate, for economic or social purposes, the passage in interstate
comm erce of either people or goods”). For example, Congress may ban the
interstate shipment of stolen goods or kidnapped persons, Perez, 402 U.S. at 150;
the interstate shipment of goods produced without minimum-wage and maximum-
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hour protections, United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 112-14 (1941); the
interstate transportation of a woman or girl for prostitution, Caminetti v. United
States, 242 U.S. 470, 491-92 (1917); or the interstate mailing or transportation of
lottery tickets, Lottery Case, 188 U.S. 321, 354-55 (1903). As the illustrative
cases show, Congress’s authority is not confined to regulations w ith a narrowly
economic purpose or impact. Congress “is free to exclude from the commerce
articles whose use in the states for which they are destined it may conceive to be
injurious to the public health, morals or welfare.” Darby, 312 U.S. at 114; see
also Heart of Atlanta M otel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 256 (1964)
(stating that the Commerce Clause allows “‘Congress to keep the channels of
interstate commerce free from immoral and injurious uses’” (quoting Caminetti,
242 U.S. at 491)). But this category is confined to statutes that regulate interstate
transportation itself, not manufacture before shipment or use after shipment. 3
The statute in this case cannot fit within the first category because it is not
directed at the movement of body armor through the channels of interstate
comm erce. Section 931 prohibits the stationary and entirely intrastate act of
possession of body armor. It would be different if the defendant had been
3
Caminetti is no exception. Although the statute upheld in that case does
focus on the purpose of the transportation— prostitution— this must be the purpose
at the time of transportation; the statute does not criminalize the transportation of
persons who happen, after crossing state lines, to become prostitutes. See
Caminetti, 242 U.S. at 488 n.1.
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convicted under a statute forbidding the interstate transportation of body armor,
or perhaps interstate transportation by a felon or for the purpose of sale to a felon.
The statute under which he was convicted, however, goes beyond the scope of the
first category. A prohibition on the mere intrastate possession of body armor
cannot be upheld under Congress’s power to regulate the channels of interstate
comm erce.
B. Instrumentalities of Interstate Commerce
Under the second category, Congress may regulate and protect “the
instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate
comm erce.” Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558; see also Raich, 125 S. Ct. at 2205. The
“instrumentalities” are the means of interstate commerce, such as ships and
railroads, and the “persons or things in interstate commerce” are the persons or
things transported by the instrumentalities among the states. See, e.g., Lopez, 514
U.S. at 558; Perez, 402 U.S. at 150. In Pensacola Tel. Co. v. W. Union Tel. Co.,
96 U.S. (6 Otto) 1, 9 (1877), the Supreme Court noted that the “instrumentalities
of commerce,” which then included the steamboat, the railroad, and the telegraph,
are not fixed but “keep pace with the progress of the country.”
Regulation under this category may extend to intrastate activities that
threaten these instrumentalities. For example, Congress may prevent the
intrastate destruction of aircraft. Perez, 402 U.S. at 150. In the Shreveport Rate
Cases, 234 U.S. 342, 351-353 (1914), the Court explained that Congress has
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authority to “prevent the common instrumentalities of interstate and intrastate
commercial intercourse from being used in their intrastate operations to the injury
of interstate commerce.” See also Southern Ry. Co. v. United States, 222 U.S. 20,
26 (1911) (upholding congressional power over intrastate commerce where the
regulation has a “real or substantial relation or connection” to “the safety of
interstate commerce and of those who are employed in its movement”). Congress
may also protect the persons or things that the instrumentalities are moving.
Thus, the Supreme Court has sustained a federal statute prohibiting the theft of
goods from shipwrecked vessels. United States v. Coombs, 37 U.S. (12 Pet.) 72,
78 (1838). The illustrative cases for this category involve things actually being
moved in interstate commerce, not all people and things that have ever moved
across state lines. See, e.g., Perez, 402 U.S. at 150 (illustrating regulation of
“persons or things in commerce” with a statute prohibiting “thefts from interstate
shipments”); see also Lopez, 514 U.S. at 559 (rejecting the idea that the
prohibition on possessing firearms near schools could “be justified as a regulation
by which C ongress has sought to protect . . . a thing in interstate commerce”);
Gibbs v. Babbitt, 214 F.3d 483, 491 (4th Cir. 2000) (rejecting the notion that past
movement across state lines could mark something forever as “a ‘thing’ in
interstate commerce” and noting that category two did not apply in Lopez “despite
the fact that the regulated guns likely traveled through interstate commerce”).
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The statute in this case does not fall within the second category. Body
armor itself is not an instrumentality, or means, of interstate commerce, and the
statute does not protect body armor while it is moving in interstate shipment. Nor
is the statute directed at the use of body armor in ways that threaten or injure the
instrumentalities of interstate commerce. The statute prohibits the bare
possession of body armor by a felon, wherever it occurs, and without regard to its
use or effect. Accordingly, it exceeds congressional authority to protect the
instrumentalities of, and persons or things in, interstate commerce.
C. Activities Substantially Affecting Interstate Commerce
Under the third category, Congress may regulate “activities that
substantially affect interstate commerce.” Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558-59; Raich, 125
S. Ct. at 2205. This is the most unsettled, and most frequently disputed, of the
categories. Under the first two categories Congress may regulate or protect actual
interstate commerce; the third allows Congress to regulate intrastate
noncommercial activity, based on its effects.
Consideration of effects necessarily involves matters of degree. The third
category thus poses not tw o hazards, like Scylla and Charybdis, but three. If we
entertain too expansive an understanding of effects, the C onstitution’s
enumeration of powers becomes meaningless and federal power becomes
effectively limitless. If we entertain too narrow an understanding, Congress is
stripped of its enumerated power, reinforced by the Necessary and Proper Clause,
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to protect and control commerce among the several states. If we employ too
nebulous a standard, w e exacerbate the risk that judges will substitute their ow n
subjective or political calculus for that of the elected representatives of the
people, or w ill appear to be doing so.
The Supreme Court’s decisions in Lopez, United States v. M orrison, 529
U.S. 598, 609 (2000), and Raich all hinged on interpretation of the third category.
Under this category we have upheld statutes that prohibit the production of child
pornography and the possession of machine guns. Jeronimo-Bautista, 425 F.3d
1266 (upholding 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a), which prohibits the production of child
pornography with materials that moved in interstate commerce); United States v.
Wilks, 58 F.3d 1518, 1521-22 (10th Cir. 1995) (upholding 18 U.S.C. § 922(o),
which prohibits the possession of machine guns). 4 The question in such cases is
4
Although in Wilks we did describe machine guns as “things in interstate
commerce,” w e effectively analyzed the statute using the tools of the third
category, such as considering the national market, aggregating the effects on
interstate commerce, and considering the broader regulatory scheme. Wilks, 58
F.3d at 1521-22. After Raich this case unmistakably falls within the third
category. Compare id. (drawing an analogy to the need to regulate “intrastate
narcotics to effectively regulate the interstate trafficking in narcotics,” contrasting
activities that “could not substantially affect comm erce” even when aggregated,
noting congressional regulation of “this extensive, intricate, and definitively
national market for machineguns,” and relying on legislative history that
describes the broader regulatory scheme (internal quotation marks omitted)), with
Raich, 125 S. Ct. at 2203-04, 2209-10 (describing in detail Congress’s “closed
regulatory system” of controlled substances and distinguishing Lopez because the
prohibition on possession of marijuana was necessary to “a larger regulation of
economic activity” (internal quotation marks omitted)). In United States v.
(continued...)
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whether Congress had a rational basis to find that the regulated activity, taken in
the aggregate, would substantially affect interstate commerce. Raich, 125 S. Ct.
at 2208. To answer that question, we consider “whether (1) the activity at which
the statute is directed is commercial or economic in nature; (2) the statute
contains an express jurisdictional element involving interstate activity that might
limit its reach; (3) Congress has made specific findings regarding the effects of
the prohibited activity on interstate commerce; and (4) the link between the
prohibited conduct and a substantial effect on interstate commerce is attenuated.”
United States v. Grim mett, 439 F.3d 1263, 1272 (10th Cir. 2006) (facial
challenge); see also Jeronimo-Bautista, 425 F.3d at 1269 (as-applied challenge).
The first factor determines whether the regulated activity falls within the
definition of “commerce.” If so, in light of the substantial integration of the
American economy in the past two centuries, there is a heavy— perhaps in reality
irrebuttable— presumption that it affects more states than one, and falls within
congressional power. See Lopez, 514 U.S. at 574 (Kennedy, J., concurring)
4
(...continued)
Haney, 264 F.3d 1161, 1163 (10th Cir. 2001), we upheld the federal ban on
machine gun possession, 18 U.S.C. § 922(o), under the second and third
categories. W e found the Commerce Clause challenge “foreclosed by controlling
Tenth Circuit precedent” on precisely the same statute, namely Wilks, and we held
“that banning possession of post 1986 machineguns is an essential part of the
federal scheme to regulate interstate commerce in dangerous weapons.” Haney,
264 F.3d at 1163, 1168-1171. Like Wilks, our decision in Haney anticipated and
falls squarely within the Supreme Court’s analysis of the third category in Raich.
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(“Congress can regulate in the commercial sphere on the assumption that we have
a single market and a unified purpose to build a stable national economy.”).
W here the regulated activity is noncommercial, the last three factors are
significant. They look to three different sources of evidence regarding whether
there is a substantial effect on interstate commerce: the statutory text, the
articulated congressional understanding, and independent evidence of whether the
activity has a substantial effect in the aggregate. W e will discuss each of these
factors, but not in the above-listed order.
1. Is the regulated activity com m ercial?
W e first consider “whether the prohibited activity is comm ercial or
economic.” Jeronimo-Bautista, 425 F.3d at 1269. The Constitution gives
Congress the power “[t]o regulate Commerce . . . among the several States.” U.S.
Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3. The distinction between what is and is not comm ercial
therefore lies at the heart of the Commerce Clause. Of course, like many
constitutional terms, the meaning of “commerce” is neither obvious nor
uncontested. The Supreme Court has warned against a definition under which
“any activity can be looked upon as comm ercial,” since this would obliterate the
intended limits on federal power. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 565. The best historical
scholarship indicates that in addition to its primary sense of buying, selling, and
transporting merchandise, the term “commerce” was understood at the Founding
to include the compensated provision of services as w ell as activities in
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preparation for selling property or services in the marketplace, such as the
production of goods for sale. See Grant S. Nelson & Robert J. Pushaw, Jr.,
Rethinking the Commerce Clause: Applying First Principles to Uphold Federal
Commercial Regulations but Preserve State Control over Social Issues, 85 Iow a
L. Rev. 1, 9-42, 107-110 (1999) (citing, among other sources, Daniel Defoe, A
Plan of the English Commerce (2d ed. 1730), Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the
Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), The Federalist No. 11
(Alexander Hamilton) (Jacob E. Cooke ed., 1961), and 2 Records of the Federal
Convention 449-50 (M ax Farrand ed., 1911) (statement of Charles Pinckney)). 5
In Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 W heat.) 1, 189-90 (1824), Chief Justice M arshall
referred to commerce as “a general term, applicable to many objects . . . .
Commerce, undoubtedly, is traffic, but it is something more . . . . It describes the
comm ercial intercourse between nations, and parts of nations, in all its branches.”
In the usage of the time, “the ‘branches’ of ‘commercial intercourse’ referred to
activities integrally related to trade, such as transportation, production, labor,
banking, and insurance.” Robert J. Pushaw, Jr., The M edical M arijuana Case: A
Commerce Clause Counter-Revolution?, 9 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 879, 887
(2005).
5
Justice Thomas has espoused a narrower historical definition, confining
the term to its primary sense of buying and selling goods and excluding
preparatory activities. See Lopez, 514 U.S. at 585-87 (Thomas, J., concurring).
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In Lopez, the Court held that possession of firearms, in itself, is not
comm ercial or economic. 514 U.S. at 560 (concluding that the prohibition on
firearm possession near a school “by its terms has nothing to do with ‘commerce’
or any sort of economic enterprise”). That makes sense, because the mere
possession of a firearm does not constitute the buying, selling, production, or
transportation of products or services, or any activity preparatory to it. See
United States v. Price, 265 F.3d 1097, 1107 (10th Cir. 2001) (contrasting the
statutes in Lopez and M orrison, “which criminalized non-economic behavior,”
with 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), which makes it illegal to “manufacture, distribute, or
dispense, or possess with intent to manufacture, distribute, or dispense a
controlled substance”— activities that are “economic in character”). The Lopez
Court’s conclusion on this point was restated and reaffirmed in Raich, 125 S. Ct.
at 2211, and we therefore regard it as settled. The same conclusion must follow
for the possession of body armor. W e can think of no reason that mere possession
of body armor by a felon would be deemed commercial when the mere possession
of a firearm near a school was not.
W e recognize that in Raich, the C ourt interpreted the contours of the third
category by reference to “economics” rather than “commerce,” and included the
“consumption of commodities” as w ell as their production and distribution within
that definition. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). That does not alter our
conclusion. First, we are bound by the holding of Lopez, reaffirmed in Raich,
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that the mere possession of firearms near a school is not a commercial activity for
purposes of the third category. Second, possession of firearms or body armor
cannot be described as “consumption.” Consumption is the “act of destroying a
thing by using it; the use of a thing in a way that thereby exhausts it,” Black’s
Law Dictionary 336 (8th ed. 2004), and possessing or wearing body armor neither
destroys nor exhausts it. Finally, we note that the Raich opinion as a whole treats
congressional authority over the domestic consumption of marijuana as within the
third category only because it was connected to a comprehensive national ban on
“the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities for which there is
an established, and lucrative, interstate market.” Raich, 125 S. Ct. at 2211. The
Controlled Substances Act, the statute at issue in Raich, prohibited possession of
marijuana as a “means of regulating comm erce in that product.” Id. W e do not
interpret Raich as holding that Congress may criminalize the mere possession of a
comm odity for the purpose of consumption, divorced from such a comprehensive
regulatory scheme, based on the third category.
Our conclusion that the possession of body armor is not a commercial
activity does not end the inquiry, but it does channel our analysis. W here the
regulated activity is commercial in nature, it generally (perhaps invariably)
follows that, aggregated with similar activities elsewhere, the activity affects the
national economy sufficiently to fall w ithin congressional power. See, e.g.,
United States v. Sullivan, 332 U.S. 689, 698 (1948) (upholding application of the
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misbranding provision of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to local sales
of drugs); Perez, 402 U.S. at 156-57 (upholding federal law against loan
sharking). But where the regulated activity is not commercial in nature, Congress
may regulate it only where there are “substantial” and not “attenuated” effects on
other states, on the national economy, or on the ability of Congress to regulate
interstate commerce. M orrison, 529 U.S. at 614-16. In considering that question,
we give special deference to any findings Congress may have made regarding the
connection of the statute to interstate commerce, and we assess the effect of any
jurisdictional hook that may confine application of the statute to situations
affecting interstate commerce. W e ask not whether, as judges, we believe the
challenged statute has a substantial effect on interstate commerce, but whether
Congress could reasonably have thought so.
2. W hat is the relation of the regulated activity to interstate com m erce?
W here possession of an item is not a commercial activity in itself, it may
nonetheless have a substantial and non-attenuated effect on interstate commerce
in two ways. First, possession of a good is related to the market for that good,
and Congress may regulate possession as a necessary and proper means of
controlling its supply or demand. For example, the federal government may elect
to prohibit the possession of eagle feathers as a practical means of drying up the
market for them, and thus protecting against the killing of eagles. Andrus v.
Allard, 444 U .S. 51, 58 (1979). Second, possession of a good is related to the use
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of that good, and its use may have effects on interstate commerce. For example,
no one would doubt Congress’s authority to prohibit the civilian possession of
surface-to-air missile launchers, on the theory that their only possible use would
substantially affect interstate commerce. W e will examine both possibilities, in
light of Supreme Court precedents in analogous cases.
a. Regulation of possession as a m eans of regulating the interstate
m arket for body arm or
In Raich, 125 S. Ct. at 2211, and earlier in Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S.
111, 127-28 (1942), the Supreme Court upheld the authority of Congress to
prohibit the domestic consumption of a home-grown commodity, where that
prohibition was an indirect and supplemental, but still essential, means of
enforcing regulations on the national market in that commodity. In Raich, the
Court concluded that noncommercial possession of home-grown marijuana for
personal medical use, as authorized by state law, could rationally be considered
an inseparable part of the broader, and undeniably commercial, national market
for marijuana. 125 S. Ct. at 2211. Under the Controlled Substances Act, the
manufacture, distribution, possession, and use of marijuana are illegal. Id.
Because of the difficulty of distinguishing home-grown marijuana consumed for
medical reasons from other marijuana, and the constant possibility of its diversion
into illicit channels, the Court concluded that Congress could rationally believe
that medical marijuana, if exempted from the A ct, would significantly increase
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the supply of marijuana and that some of this marijuana would move in interstate
commerce. Id. at 2213-14. The Court distinguished Lopez and M orrison on the
ground that the challenged provisions in those cases were not part of a
comprehensive regulation of economic activity. Id. at 2209-11.
In the statute at issue in Wickard, Congress enacted a comprehensive
program limiting the production of certain agricultural commodities for the
purpose of raising their market price. 317 U.S. at 125-27. The Court upheld
application of those regulations to wheat produced by a farmer for his own
family’s domestic and livestock consumption, on the theory that allowing farmers
to evade the production restrictions, when consuming wheat for their own use,
would undermine the economic objectives of the entire program. Id. at 127-28.
In both Raich and Wickard, the regulation of domestic possession and use
was justified on the basis of its impact on a comprehensive regulatory scheme
directed at interstate production, distribution, and sale. By contrast, in Lopez,
where there was no such connection to a comprehensive regulation of the national
market, the Court made clear that Congress could not reach mere possession
under the Commerce Clause. 514 U.S. at 560 (“Section 922(g) is not an essential
part of a larger regulation of economic activity, in which the regulatory scheme
would be undercut unless the intrastate activity were regulated.”).
This Court has used the same rationale to sustain congressional prohibitions
on the production and possession of child pornography. In Jeronimo-Bautista and
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Grim mett, this Court held that Congress has authority under the Commerce Clause
to prohibit mere possession of child pornography, on the rationale that prohibiting
possession was an essential part of a comprehensive scheme to destroy the market
for this pernicious commodity. Grim mett, 439 F.3d at 1272; Jeronimo-Bautista,
425 F.3d at 1271. Thus, although possession of child pornography might in some
cases be intrastate and noncommercial, prohibiting it across the board can be an
indirect and supplemental, but still essential, means of controlling the interstate
commercial market. Accord United States v. M axwell, — F.3d — , No. 03-14326,
2006 W L 1041011, at *5 (11th Cir. Apr. 20, 2006) (“[W ]here Congress
comprehensively regulates economic activity, it may constitutionally regulate
intrastate activity, whether economic or not, so long as the inability to do so
would undermine Congress’s ability to implement effectively the overlying
economic regulatory scheme.”).
W here the statute is not part of a comprehensive scheme of regulation,
however, the Court has not upheld federal regulation of purely intrastate
noneconomic activity. See Morrison, 529 U.S. at 610 (indicating that the
“noneconomic, criminal nature of the conduct at issue” in Lopez “was central to
[the] decision”); id. at 613 (noting that the Supreme Court had “upheld Commerce
Clause regulation of intrastate activity only where that activity [was] economic in
nature”); Raich, 125 S. Ct. at 2210 (noting that in M orrison the Court “held the
statute unconstitutional because, like the statute in Lopez, it did not regulate
-21-
economic activity”); id. at 2211 (upholding “a statute that directly regulates
economic, commercial activity”).
W e must therefore determine whether the prohibition on possession of body
armor by felons is an essential part of “comprehensive legislation to regulate the
interstate market in a fungible commodity.” Raich, 125 S. Ct. at 2209. It is not.
In contrast to its comprehensive ban on marijuana under the Controlled
Substances Act, Congress has not prohibited the manufacture, distribution, sale,
possession, or use of body armor. M embers of the U.S. military, federal agents of
the C IA and FBI, local police officers, security guards, hunters, convenience store
owners— all non-felons— are free to buy, own, and possess body armor.
Companies are free to produce and sell it. The prohibition of possession by a
small class of persons, felons, is unrelated to any broader attempt to suppress the
market (as in Raich, Jeronimo-Bautista, or Grim mett) or to comprehensively
control supply (as in Wickard). Even with respect to felons, the statute’s non-
comm ercial focus is clear from what goes unpunished. No one violates the law
by selling to a felon or buying from a felon, and felons themselves may sell body
armor previously acquired or use it in the course of their licit occupations. 18
U.S.C. § 931(b)(1).
M oreover, in this case, M r. Patton acquired his bulletproof vest at a time
when possession of body armor by felons was lawful. Here, therefore, there is no
logical connection— not even an attenuated one— between his possession and the
-22-
body armor market. Since it was lawful for him to purchase and possess the
armor when he bought it, prohibition of continued possession cannot contribute,
even indirectly, to regulating the market. Cf. United States v. M arrero, 299 F.3d
653, 655-56 (7th Cir. 2002) (“[W]e are in a new era and must be wary of such
arguments as that the theft of a bottle of aspirin from a person’s home ‘affects’
commerce, provided only that the bottle was shipped from another state, because
the homeowner would be likely to buy another bottle from his local druggist to
replace the one that was stolen and the druggist would replace that sale by
purchasing another bottle interstate.”).
Nor does it matter that body armor is subject to pervasive regulation by the
states, as discussed below. Such regulation of a commodity is not enough to
establish a comprehensive regulatory scheme, because this w as surely present in
Lopez and the states and the federal government regulate firearms more
extensively than body armor. See Anthony A. Braga et al., The Illegal Supply of
Firearm s, 29 Crime & Just. 319, 321-24 (2002) (describing the extensive
regulation of firearms). Like the statute in Lopez, section 931 regulates
possession for its own sake and cannot be justified as part (much less as an
essential part) of a comprehensive regulation of the market in body armor.
-23-
b. Regulation of possession as a m eans of controlling uses that m ight
affect interstate com m erce
The second way in which noncommercial, intrastate possession of an item
might substantially affect interstate commerce is related to use. Possession might
be prohibited as an anticipatory means of prohibiting use of a thing in a way that
affects interstate commerce.
Actually, any use of anything might have an effect on interstate commerce,
in the same sense in which a butterfly flapping its wings in China might bring
about a change of weather in New York. Thomas Jefferson warned against an
overly expansive notion of cause and effect in interpreting the combination of
Congress’s enumerated powers and the Necessary and Proper Clause:
Congress are authorized to defend the nation. Ships are necessary for
defense; copper is necessary for ships; mines necessary for copper; a
company necessary to work mines; and who can doubt this reasoning who
has ever played at “This is the House that Jack Built?”
Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston (A pr. 30, 1800), in 10 The
Writings of Thom as Jefferson 165 (A lbert Ellery Bergh ed., 1903). See also
United States v. A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp., 76 F.2d 617, 624 (2d Cir. 1935)
(L. Hand, J., concurring) (“In an industrial society bound together by means of
transport and communication as rapid and certain as ours, it is idle to seek for any
transaction, however apparently isolated, which may not have an effect elsewhere;
such a society is an elastic medium which transmits all tremors throughout its
territory; the only question is of their size.”), aff’d in part and rev’d in part, 295
-24-
U.S. 495 (1935). If any activity with any effect on interstate commerce, however
attenuated, were within congressional regulatory authority, the C onstitution’s
enumeration of powers would have been in vain.
That is why the Supreme Court has insisted that, to justify congressional
exertion of the commerce power within the third category, the effects must be
both “significant” and not “attenuated.” See, e.g., M orrison, 529 U.S. at 612-15.
The clearest examples are the Court’s decisions in Lopez and M orrison, which
were reaffirmed in Raich. Dissenters in those cases offered powerful arguments
that the regulated activities— possession of firearms near schools and gender-
motivated violence— could and did have significant effects on economic activity.
In both cases the majority rejected those arguments, largely on the ground that, if
accepted, similar effects could be invoked in every case, and the Commerce
Clause would become, in effect, a grant of general governing authority. See
Lopez, 514 U.S. at 564 (disfavoring the government’s expansive understanding of
the Commerce Clause because it would leave the Court “hard pressed to posit any
activity by an individual that Congress [would be] w ithout power to regulate”);
M orrison, 529 U.S. at 615 (“If accepted, petitioners’ reasoning would allow
Congress to regulate any crime as long as the nationwide, aggregated impact of
that crime has substantial effects on employment, production, transit, or
consumption.”).
-25-
No one would question that the possession of body armor by felons
contributes to crime, or that crime has a measurable and significant impact on the
national economy. But that was the argument rejected in Lopez and M orrison.
Possession of firearms in the vicinity of schools can contribute to crime, and
gender-motivated violence is crime. This Court, being bound by the precedents of
Lopez and M orrison, therefore cannot hold that simply because body armor
facilitates crime, the subject falls within Congress’s commerce power.
Indeed, application of section 931 in this case has an even more attenuated
relation to interstate commerce than the possession of firearms in Lopez— let
alone the actual commission of violent offenses in M orrison. Unlike carrying a
firearm in the vicinity of a school, wearing body armor is not an inherently
threatening act. M uch of the time, wearing body armor is an act of self-defense,
which reduces rather than increases crime. This case illustrates the point: M r.
Patton was not armed at the time he was apprehended and— according to his
story— was wearing the vest solely because his prior gang activity, now
abandoned, made him vulnerable to attack. If the statute w ere limited to
possession of body armor in conjunction with an offensive w eapon, or to the use
of body armor in the commission of a crime affecting interstate commerce, which
were the scenarios motivating its enactment, 6 the connection would be less
6
Congress enacted the statute in response to three notorious incidents in
(continued...)
-26-
attenuated. As it is, however, application of section 931 to the circumstances of
this case cannot be reconciled with Lopez and M orrison.
M oreover, the dissenters’ arguments in Lopez and M orrison regarding the
substantial effect of the regulated conduct on interstate commerce largely rested
on the frequent incidence, and therefore significant aggregated effect, of the
conduct. See e.g., Lopez, 514 U.S. at 616, 619-27 (Breyer, J., dissenting);
M orrison, 529 U.S. at 659-60 (Breyer, J., dissenting). The theory was that
widespread conduct, occurring nationwide, has national consequences and
warrants a national response. The House Report on section 931, by contrast,
contained a Congressional Budget Office estimate, based on information from the
U.S. Sentencing Commission, that the prohibition on possession of body armor by
felons “would probably affect fewer than 10 cases each year.” H.R. Rep. No.
107-193, pt. 1, at 7 (2001). Ten criminal cases a year is at the other end of the
spectrum from Lopez and M orrison. The CBO estimate shows that the effect on
interstate commerce of felons’ possession of body armor is probably negligible
and certainly far from substantial.
6
(...continued)
which armed criminals wore body armor— a bank shootout in North Hollywood,
California, the shooting of a San Francisco police officer after a long gun battle,
and the shooting of an Alabama police officer by a drug dealer resisting a search
warrant. H.R. Rep. No. 107-193, pt. 1, at 4 (2001).
-27-
3. W hat are the congressional findings?
Analysis of the effect of felons’ possession of body armor is facilitated by
Congress’s “specific findings regarding the effects of the prohibited activity on
interstate commerce.” Grim mett, 439 F.3d at 1272. W e treat Congress’s findings
“on essentially factual issues” with “a great deal of deference,” Walters v. Nat’l
Ass’n of Radiation Survivors, 473 U.S. 305, 330 n.12 (1985), and “[p]roper
respect for a co-ordinate branch” requires that we also treat Congress’s normative
conclusions and constitutional judgments with great respect. See United States v.
Harris, 106 U.S. (16 Otto) 601, 635 (1883).
Although there were no preambulatory findings enacted as part of the
statute, the House Report contained the following formal findings regarding the
rationale for section 931:
(1) nationally, police officers and ordinary citizens are facing increased
danger as criminals use more deadly weaponry, body armor, and other
sophisticated assault gear;
(2) crime at the local level is exacerbated by the interstate movement of
body armor and other assault gear;
(3) there is a traffic in body armor moving in or otherwise affecting
interstate commerce, and existing Federal controls over such traffic do not
adequately enable the States to control this traffic w ithin their own borders
through the exercise of their police power;
(4) recent incidents, such as the murder of San Francisco Police Officer
James Guelff by an assailant wearing 2 layers of body armor, a 1997 bank
shoot out in north Hollywood, California, between police and 2 heavily
armed suspects outfitted in body armor, and the 1997 murder of Captain
Chris M cCurley of the Etowah County, Alabama Drug Task Force by a
drug dealer shielded by protective body armor, demonstrate the serious
threat to community safety posed by criminals who wear body armor during
the commission of a violent crime . . . .
-28-
H.R. Rep. 107-193, pt. 1, at 2.
Several of these findings make no mention of interstate commerce. Those
that do focus on three points: (1) an interstate market for body armor exists, (2)
the interstate movement of body armor increases crime, and (3) federal controls
over the interstate market will allow states to control the intrastate trade in body
armor. The first two points are surely true, but they were also true in Lopez. An
interstate market exists for guns and for body armor, and the interstate movement
of both can increase crime. Yet in Lopez the existence of the market and the
incidence of crime did not establish that the prohibited possessions substantially
affected interstate commerce. See Lopez, 514 U.S. at 563-64 (rejecting the
argument that firearm possession substantially affects interstate commerce
because it can result in violent crime, which in turn affects insurance and
education and thus the national economy).
The congressional findings regarding the existence of an interstate market
for body armor would be more meaningful if the statute attempted to suppress or
limit that market. As discussed above, however, it does not. M anufacture,
distribution, and sale of body armor— even sale of body armor to felons— is
entirely lawful, and has not been regulated by Congress. Congressional findings
that “crime at the local level is exacerbated by the interstate movement of body
armor and other assault gear” and that “there is a traffic in body armor moving in
or otherwise affecting interstate commerce,” H.R. Rep. No. 107-193, pt. 1, at 2,
-29-
while undoubtedly true, do nothing to explain or justify a statute that does not
limit the interstate movement of body armor or the traffic in it.
The third point suggests that federal regulation of the interstate traffic in
body armor would somehow enable the states themselves to prohibit felons’
possession. But thirty-one states already regulate the possession or use of body
armor, with an array of legislative approaches. 7 It is thus clear that the federal
prohibition does not “enable” state prohibitions. At best, the federal law
duplicates the state prohibitions. At worst, it may conflict with a state’s policy
judgment, see Jones v. United States, 529 U.S. 848, 859 (2000) (Stevens, J.,
concurring) (noting that the severe penalties of the federal criminal arson statute
could “effectively displace a policy choice made by the State”); discourage
experimentation, see Lopez, 514 U.S. at 583 (Kennedy, J., concurring)
(suggesting that the Gun-Free School Zones Act “foreclose[d] the States from
7
In fifteen states a person commits a crime or receives a higher sentence for
wearing body armor while committing certain crimes (Arizona, Delaware,
Georgia, Indiana, M assachusetts, M innesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New
York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, W est Virginia);
in four states, for wearing body armor and possessing a deadly weapon while
comm itting certain crimes (Florida, Kentucky, Utah, Virginia); in five states, for
possessing body armor after being convicted of a felony (Alabama, Arizona,
Connecticut, Texas, W isconsin); in six states, for w earing body armor w hile
comm itting certain crimes or for possessing body armor after being convicted of a
felony (California, Illinois, Louisiana, M aryland, M ichigan, South Carolina); and
in one state, for wearing body armor and possessing a deadly weapon while
comm itting certain crimes or for possessing body armor after being convicted of a
felony (Oregon). Additionally, one state that restricts felon possession also
requires that sales to private parties be made face-to-face (Connecticut).
-30-
experimenting and exercising their own judgment in an area to which States lay
claim by right of history and expertise”); or even preempt state criminal laws, see
Pennsylvania v. Nelson, 350 U.S. 497, 504 (1956) (holding that a federal sedition
statute preempted the Pennsylvania Sedition Act); see also M ichael A. Simons,
Prosecutorial Discretion and Prosecution Guidelines: A Case Study in
Controlling Federalization, 75 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 893, 962 n.309 (2000) (noting the
“de facto preemption of state and local prosecutions” in the context of crimes
implicating federal interests).
M oreover, the findings indicate that this statute falls primarily within an
area of traditional regulation by the states, namely protecting “police officers and
ordinary citizens” from violent crime. See Lopez, 514 U.S. at 561 n.3 (noting the
“primary authority” of the states for creating the criminal law (internal quotation
marks omitted)); M orrison, 529 U.S. at 615-17 (noting areas of traditional state
concern and “reject[ing] the argument that Congress may regulate noneconomic,
violent criminal conduct based solely on that conduct’s aggregate effect on
interstate commerce”). Congress was understandably concerned about “the
serious threat to community safety posed by criminals who wear body armor
during the commission of a violent crime.” H.R. Rep. No. 107-193, pt. 1, at 2.
Yet in this area the Supreme Court has emphasized the prerogatives of the states.
See, e.g., M orrison, 529 U.S. at 618 (“The regulation and punishment of intrastate
violence that is not directed at the instrumentalities, channels, or goods involved
-31-
in interstate commerce has always been the province of the States.”); Cohens v.
Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 W heat.) 264, 426 (1821) (M arshall, C.J.) (concluding that
Congress has “no general right to punish murder committed within any of the
States”). 8 M oreover, as noted above, this statute not only intrudes on an area of
traditional state concern but also potentially conflicts w ith the widespread state
regulation that already exists. Cf. Lopez, 514 U .S. at 561 n.3 (“W hen Congress
criminalizes conduct already denounced as criminal by the States, it effects a
change in the sensitive relation betw een federal and state criminal jurisdiction.”
(internal quotation marks omitted)). Far from establishing a substantial effect on
interstate commerce, these findings raise concerns about federal intrusion and
suggest that wearing body armor affects interstate commerce insofar as all crime
hurts the economy— an argument the Supreme Court rejected in Lopez and
M orrison.
4. Is there a sufficient jurisdictional hook?
Finally, we consider “whether the statue’s reach w as limited by an express
jurisdictional element.” Jeronimo-Bautista, 425 F.3d at 1269. As the Court
8
W e do not mean to suggest that subjects of traditional state concern are
immune from congressional regulation when they fall within Congress’s Article I
powers. Our constitutional federalism is based on a one-way enumeration: the
question is whether a particular authority has been vested in Congress, not
whether it falls within the reserved powers of the states, which are defined only
negatively. But evidence regarding traditional divisions of power between the
states and the federal government can help to show how the C onstitution’s
enumerations have been interpreted over time.
-32-
explained in M orrison, a jurisdictional hook restricting the statute to activities
that “‘have an explicit connection with or effect on interstate commerce’ . . . .
may establish that the enactment is in pursuance of Congress’ regulation of
interstate commerce.” 529 U.S. at 612 (quoting Lopez, 514 U.S. at 562). A
jurisdictional hook is not, however, a talisman that wards off constitutional
challenges. See United States v. Rodia, 194 F.3d 465, 472-73 (3d Cir. 1999)
(rejecting a “hard and fast rule that the presence of a jurisdictional element
automatically ensures the constitutionality of a statute”); United States v. Holston,
343 F.3d 83, 88 (2d Cir. 2003) (finding the jurisdictional hook factor
“superficially met” but not relying on “the mere existence of jurisdictional
language purporting to tie criminal conduct to interstate commerce”). As the
Eleventh Circuit has recently noted, “where a jurisdictional element is required, a
meaningful one, rather than a pretextual incantation evoking the phantasm of
comm erce, must be offered.” M axwell, 2006 W L 1041011, at *7 (internal
quotation marks, citations, and alteration omitted). The ultimate inquiry is
whether the prohibited activity has a substantial effect on interstate commerce,
and the presence of a jurisdictional hook, though certainly helpful, is neither
necessary nor sufficient.
The principal practical consequence of a jurisdictional hook is to make a
facial constitutional challenge unlikely or impossible, and to direct litigation
toward the statutory question of whether, in the particular case, the regulated
-33-
conduct possesses the requisite connection to interstate commerce. See Jones,
529 U.S. at 857. In Jones, the Supreme Court unanimously held that an alleged
violation of the federal arson statute fell outside the statute’s jurisdictional hook,
which limited application to “‘property used in interstate or foreign comm erce or
in any activity affecting interstate or foreign comm erce.’” Id. at 850-51 (quoting
18 U.S.C. § 844(i)). The government argued that the jurisdictional hook was
satisfied because the burned home was used in three activities affecting interstate
commerce: securing a mortgage from an out-of-state lender, obtaining a casualty
insurance policy from an out-of-state insurer, and receiving natural gas from out-
of-state sources. Id. at 855. The Court rejected this “expansive interpretation” in
part because “[p]ractically every building in our cities, towns, and rural areas is
constructed with supplies that have moved in interstate commerce, served by
utilities that have an interstate connection, financed or insured by enterprises that
do business across state lines, or bears some other trace of interstate commerce.”
Id. at 857. In Jones, therefore, the jurisdictional hook served the purpose of
limiting the statute to arson cases where there really was a substantial and non-
attenuated effect on interstate commerce.
The statute under which M r. Patton was charged also has a jurisdictional
hook, but it does not seriously limit the reach of the statute. The jurisdictional
hook, § 921(a)(35), limits the definition of “body armor” to “any product sold or
offered for sale, in interstate or foreign comm erce, as personal protective body
-34-
covering intended to protect against gunfire.” Nearly all body armor will meet
that test. M ore important, there is no reason to think that possession of body
armor that satisfies the jurisdictional hook has any greater effect on interstate
commerce than possession of any other body armor.
If Congress intended to suppress the interstate market in body armor, then
directing a prohibition on possession towards armor that had moved in interstate
commerce would make sense. Cf. Wickard, 317 U.S. at 128 (“O ne of the primary
purposes of the Act in question was to increase the market price of wheat and to
that end to limit the volume thereof that could affect the market.”). Where
Congress has chosen to allow production, distribution, and sale of body armor in
interstate commerce, however, it is hard to understand why possession of armor
that meets that description is more objectionable than any other. See Holston, 343
F.3d at 89 (questioning the effectiveness of a jurisdictional hook when “the
interstate component underpinning the jurisdictional element, for example, the
shipment of a video camera, is attenuated from the criminal conduct— the
production of child pornography— which occurs entirely locally”).
A jurisdictional hook that restricts a statute to items that bear a “trace of
interstate commerce” is no restriction at all. Jones, 529 U.S. at 857. To apply the
body armor statute to every case where body armor w as once sold across state
lines would therefore replicate the government’s error in Jones. If the
jurisdictional hook had limited application of the statute to cases where the felon
-35-
used body armor during commission of a crime that affected interstate commerce,
we would know exactly what Congress’s theory of its authority is. W e would
then be able to evaluate whether, on the facts of the case, the substantial and non-
attenuated connection to interstate commerce that Congress expected was present.
As it is, however, section 931’s requirement that the body armor must once have
traveled in interstate commerce is so sweeping as to be unhelpful in determining
whether the activities regulated by the statute have a substantial and non-
attenuated effect on interstate commerce.
Given that M r. Patton’s possession was not interstate, not commercial, and
not an essential part of a comprehensive scheme of economic regulation, that his
use of the bulletproof vest was in self-defense and not connected to crimes that
might affect interstate commerce, and in light of the CBO’s prediction that the
statute would be applied fewer than ten times a year, we find no rational basis for
concluding that the possession of body armor prohibited by section 931
substantially affects interstate commerce. W e thus conclude that 18 U.S.C. § 931
cannot be justified as a regulation of the channels of commerce, as a protection of
the instrumentalities of commerce, or as a regulation of intrastate activity that
substantially affects interstate commerce.
D. Scarborough v. United States
Although the body armor statute does not fit within any of the Lopez
categories, it is supported by the pre-Lopez precedent of Scarborough v. United
-36-
States, 431 U.S. 563, 575 (1977), which held that Congress intended a felon-in-
possession statute to prohibit possession of any firearm that had moved in
interstate commerce. Scarborough decided only a question of statutory
interpretation about a previous version of the felon-in-possession statute, but the
decision assumed that Congress could constitutionally regulate the possession of
firearms solely because they had previously moved across state lines. See Brent
E. Newton, Felons, Firearms, and Federalism: Reconsidering Scarborough in
Light of Lopez, 3 J. App. Practice & Process 671, 674 (2001).
The constitutional understanding implicit in Scarborough— that Congress
may regulate any firearm that has ever traversed state lines— has been repeatedly
adopted for felon-in-possession statutes by this Court. In United States v. Bolton,
68 F.3d 396 (10th Cir. 1995), we announced without fanfare that the post-Lopez
jurisdictional hook in § 922(g) w as enough to ensure constitutionality. Id. at 400
(“Section 922(g)’s requirement that the firearm have been, at some time, in
interstate commerce is sufficient to establish its constitutionality under the
Commerce Clause.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). In United States v.
Farnsworth, 92 F.3d 1001, 1006 (10th Cir. 1996), following Bolton, we rejected
an as-applied challenge and found it sufficient that the defendant’s “gun had been
manufactured in a different state from that in which it was found.” 92 F.3d at
1006. M ost recently, in United States v. Dorris, 236 F.3d 582 (10th Cir. 2000),
we considered a challenge based not only on Lopez but also on M orrison and
-37-
Jones. In rejecting the challenge, we based our holding squarely on Scarborough
and on our own line of precedents, even though in dicta we described § 922(g)(1)
as a regulation of “items sent in interstate commerce, and the channels of
comm erce themselves.” Dorris, 236 F.3d at 584-86 (calling Scarborough a case
in w hich “the Supreme Court passed on the very question M r. Dorris presents us”
and noting that “[t]his Court has tw ice considered § 922(g)(1)’s post-Lopez
constitutionality in Bolton and Farnsworth”).
O ther circuits have similarly continued to follow Scarborough, though
some have expressed doubts about its continuing validity. See, e.g., United States
v. W eem s, 322 F.3d 18, 26 (1st Cir. 2003) (considering Scarborough to be
unaltered by Jones); United States v. Lemons, 302 F.3d 769, 773 (7th Cir. 2002)
(noting “ample Seventh Circuit precedent” upholding § 922(g)(1) because of its
jurisdictional hook and suggesting that if Lopez undercuts this approach, “it is for
the Supreme Court to so hold”); United States v. Cortes, 299 F.3d 1030, 1037 n.2
(9th Cir. 2002) (noting that doubts have been raised but choosing, “[u]ntil the
Suprem e Court tells us otherw ise,” to “follow Scarborough unwaveringly”);
United States v. Kirk, 105 F.3d 997, 1004 (5th Cir. 1997) (evenly divided court en
banc) (Higginbotham, J.) (upholding § 922(o), the ban on possession of machine
guns, but relying on the third Lopez category instead of the more expansive
approach in United States v. Bass, 404 U .S. 336, 350 (1971), a predecessor case
to Scarborough, and noting that “[i]t is not for us to say that Bass cannot survive
-38-
Lopez”); id. at 1016 n.25 (Jones, J.) (finding the statute unconstitutional under
the three Lopez categories yet noting that “[w]e are not at liberty to question”
Scarborough, despite its “tension” with Lopez); United States v. Smith, 101 F.3d
202, 215 (1st Cir. 1996) (holding that Scarborough, not Lopez, applies to statues
with a jurisdictional hook); United States v. Kuban, 94 F.3d 971, 973 n.4 (5th Cir.
1996) (noting the “powerful argument” against the constitutionality of § 922(g)(1)
but regarding Scarborough “as barring the w ay” for an “inferior federal court”);
id. at 976-78 (DeM oss, J., dissenting in part) (distinguishing the statute in
Scarborough and finding its holding “in fundamental and irreconcilable conflict
with the rationale” of Lopez); United States v. Chesney, 86 F.3d 564, 571 (6th
Cir. 1996) (following Scarborough); id. at 577-82 (Batchelder, J., concurring)
(distinguishing Scarborough because it did not reach the constitutional question,
concluding that despite its jurisdictional hook § 922(g)(1) fits none of the Lopez
categories, but nevertheless concurring because of prior Sixth Circuit precedent);
United States v. Shelton, 66 F.3d 991, 992 (8th Cir. 1995) (per curiam) (following
Scarborough); United States v. Bishop, 66 F.3d 569, 587-88 & n.28 (3d Cir. 1995)
(upholding 18 U.S.C. § 2119, a carjacking statute, because of its jurisdictional
hook and noting that until the Supreme Court is more explicit on the relationship
between Lopez and Scarborough a lower court is “not at liberty to overrule
existing Supreme Court precedent”); id. at 593-97 & n.13 (Becker, J., concurring
in part and dissenting in part) (criticizing the majority for relying on
-39-
Scarborough, which “was devoid of any Commerce Clause analysis,” and
insisting that a jurisdictional hook could make an application of a statute
constitutional only if it also fell within one of the three Lopez categories); but see
United States v. Luna, 165 F.3d 316, 321 n.16 (5th Cir. 1999) (noting “the
uncertainty surrounding the application of Scarborough” and instead basing its
holding on the Lopez categories).
The two courts outside this Circuit that have considered the
constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 931 have taken a similar approach. One found the
question controlled by Scarborough and Third Circuit precedents upholding 18
U.S.C. § 922(g). See United States v. Kitsch, 307 F. Supp. 2d 657, 660-61 (E.D .
Pa. 2004). The other relied on Sixth Circuit precedents upholding § 922(g), the
presence of the jurisdictional hook, and the persuasive authority of Kitsch. See
United States v. M arler, 402 F. Supp. 2d 852, 854-55 (N .D. Ohio 2005).
Because M r. Patton’s bulletproof vest moved across state lines at some
point in its existence, Congress may regulate it under Scarborough, even though it
does not fall within any of the three categories the Court now recognizes for
Commerce Clause authority. The prohibition on possessing body armor cannot be
distinguished from the prohibitions on possessing firearms that we have upheld.
As noted above, firearms are more broadly regulated than body armor. But in
Bolton, Farnsworth, and Dorris this Court never treated the constitutionality of
the firearm statutes as turning on the scope of the regulatory scheme.
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Consequently, this difference between body armor and firearms is not relevant
under the Scarborough line of analysis. Following our precedent, we conclude
that 18 U.S.C. § 931 does not exceed congressional power under the Commerce
Clause.
Like our sister circuits, we see considerable tension between Scarborough
and the three-category approach adopted by the Supreme Court in its recent
Commerce Clause cases, and like our sister circuits, we conclude that we are
bound by Scarborough, which was left intact by Lopez. Even if we were not
persuaded that Scarborough remains “the case which directly controls,” Agostini
v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 237 (1997), we would still be compelled to follow its
reasoning by prior decisions of this Court, which have continued to adhere to
Scarborough despite Lopez and the subsequent cases. See Bolton, 68 F.3d at 400;
Farnsworth, 92 F.3d at 1006; Dorris, 236 F.3d at 584-86. Any doctrinal
inconsistency between Scarborough and the Supreme Court’s more recent
decisions is not for this Court to remedy. Agostini, 521 U.S. at 237. W e suspect
the Supreme Court will revisit this issue in an appropriate case— maybe even this
one.
III. Due Process
M r. Patton’s remaining constitutional arguments may be disposed of
quickly. He makes two as-applied challenges to the statute under the D ue Process
Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The first is that the statute deprived him of
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property he had legitimately acquired, namely the bulletproof vest, without due
process of law.
As the government points out, M r. Patton cites no authority in support of
his argument. But his claim is reminiscent of that in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60
U.S. (19 How.) 393, 450, 452 (1857), which held that a slaveholder was deprived
of his putative property, without due process of law, by territorial legislation
barring slavery. The argument is no more persuasive now than it w as then. See
id. at 627 (Curtis, J., dissenting). It is not unconstitutional for Congress or a state
legislature to forbid possession of a previously licit good, or to forbid a class of
persons from possessing an item they had been permitted to possess. Samuels v.
M cCurdy, 267 U.S. 188, 194-99 (1925) (holding that a state does not violate the
Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by prohibiting the possession
of lawfully acquired goods). Such legislation may, in a sense, be a deprivation of
property, but if the legislation is duly enacted and enforced through proper
procedures, there is no denial of due process of law. See Helton v. Hunt, 330
F.3d 242, 247 (4th Cir. 2003) (sustaining a due process challenge to a statute
“providing for the destruction of video gaming machines without any process
whatsoever”).
M r. Patton’s second due process argument is that he has a right of self-
protection. W ith no assurance of government safekeeping, M r. Patton had to
protect himself “from his enemies on the street.” Br. for Appellant 15. The
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federal government prevented him from doing so, he claims, by taking away his
one legal means of self-protection, the bulletproof vest.
The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment does not give M r. Patton
the right to protect himself through unlawful means. As M r. Patton concedes, the
government does not have a constitutional obligation to protect a person’s life,
liberty, and property from harm inflicted by third parties. DeShaney v.
Winnebago County Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 195 (1989). There are tw o
exceptions to this rule, when the government involuntarily restrains a person
(“special relationship”) and when the government creates the danger (“danger
creation”). Armijo ex rel. Chavez v. Wagon M ound Pub. Sch., 159 F.3d 1253,
1260 (10th Cir. 1998). Although some language in our previous cases supports
M r. Patton’s claim, see, e.g., Arm ijo, 159 F.3d at 1261 (describing the “special
relationship” exception as applying when “the state restrains an individual’s
freedom to act to protect himself or herself through a restraint on that individual’s
personal liberty”), the prohibition on possessing body armor does not create a
“special relationship.” W e have found such a relationship only in the case of
persons who depend “‘completely on the state to satisfy their basic human
needs’”— for example, prisoners, those involuntarily committed to mental
institutions, and foster children. DeAnzona v. City & County of Denver, 222 F.3d
1229, 1234 (10th Cir. 2000) (quoting M aldonado v. Josey, 975 F.2d 727, 732-33
(10th Cir. 1992)). The federal government restricted M r. Patton’s freedom of
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movement and forbade him to possess body armor, but it did not feed, clothe, and
house him; no “special relationship” existed. It is also clear that the government
did not create the danger to M r. Patton. As a result, whatever the nature of M r.
Patton’s interest in self-protection, the ban on his possession of body armor does
not violate the Due Process Clause.
IV. The Necessity D efense
M r. Patton also challenges the district court’s exclusion of his “modified
justification defense.” Br. for Appellant 18. Although M r. Patton declines to
confine his defense to conventional legal categories such as necessity or duress,
in substance this is a necessity defense, and we review the district court’s denial
of a necessity defense for abuse of discretion. See U nited States v. Seward, 687
F.2d 1270, 1276 (10th Cir. 1982) (en banc) (concluding that the district court did
not abuse its discretion by denying the requested instruction for a necessity
defense); see also United States v. M eraz-Valeta, 26 F.3d 992, 995 (10th Cir.
1994), overruled on other grounds by United States v. Aguirre-Tello, 353 F.3d
1199 (10th Cir. 2004) (en banc). W e have not always been consistent about the
standard of review for a district court’s denial of a requested defense instruction,
see Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp. v. UM IC, Inc., 136 F.3d 1375, 1382 (10th Cir. 1998)
(citing one case each for de novo and abuse of discretion), and we recognize that
other circuits use de novo review for this essentially legal question, see, e.g.,
United States v. Cervantes-Flores, 421 F.3d 825, 828 (9th Cir. 2005) (per
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curiam). Nevertheless, our standard of review is controlled by this Court’s en
banc decision in Seward and the panel decision in M eraz-Valeta.
M r. Patton’s argument assumes that a federal common law defense of
necessity exists, and the government does not contend otherwise. Even though
the Supreme Court has called it “an open question whether federal courts ever
have authority to recognize a necessity defense not provided by statute,” United
States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Coop., 532 U.S. 483, 490 (2001), this Court
has recognized a common law defense of necessity. See Seward, 687 F.2d at
1276 (holding that the defendant did not meet the requirements of the necessity
defense); cf. Frank Easterbrook, The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: Revisited,
112 Harv. L. Rev. 1913, 1913-14 (1999) (“All three branches of government
historically have been entitled to assess claims of justification— the legislature by
specifying the prohibition and allowing exceptions, the executive by declining to
prosecute (or by pardon after conviction), and the judiciary by developing
defenses.”). W e therefore assume that a federal necessity defense exists.
The district court granted the government’s motion in limine to exclude M r.
Patton’s “modified justification defense,” finding as a matter of law that M r.
Patton had not asserted facts sufficient to support it. In effect, M r. Patton is
asking for a necessity defense w ithout the usual imminence requirement. He
proposes this less rigorous variant of the necessity defense primarily on the
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grounds that his crime threatened no one. He also argues that in his case the “risk
of harm [was] more omnipresent than imminent.” Br. for Appellant 21.
M r. Patton, then, is asking us to restructure the requirements of the
necessity defense for purportedly “victimless” crimes. Others have made the
same suggestion. See, e.g., M odel Penal Code § 3.02(1)(a) (offering a “choice of
evils” defense that does not require imminence but does require that “the harm or
evil sought to be avoided by such conduct is greater than that sought to be
prevented by the law defining the offense charged”); Law rence P. Tiffany & Carl
A. Anderson, Legislating the Necessity Defense in Criminal Law, 52 Denv. L.J.
839, 854 (1975) (“No matter how improbable or temporally remote the threatened
harm, should not the scales be tipped in favor of a defendant who sought to avoid
that threatened harm by an act that posed no threat to anyone?”); Aldrich v.
Wright, 53 N.H. 398, 1873 W L 4187, at *5 (1873). W e do not decide whether
there are ever circumstances in which the imminence requirement should be
relaxed, but w e decline to create an exception in this case. W e do so for two
reasons. First, given the uncertainty surrounding judge-made defenses to federal
crimes, Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Coop., 532 U.S. at 490, we are reluctant to
refashion the traditional requirements. Second, to allow M r. Patton’s modified
necessity defense for section 931 might effectively read the statute out of
existence. Congress made the decision to criminalize possession of body armor
by a class of individuals who have threatened others and are likely to be
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threatened themselves— i.e., those who have been convicted of a violent
felony— and allowing them to violate the statue whenever they live in dangerous
circumstances might cause the defense to swallow up the crime.
M r. Patton must therefore meet the traditional common law requirements of
the necessity defense: “(1) there is no legal alternative to violating the law, (2)
the harm to be prevented is imminent, and (3) a direct, causal relationship is
reasonably anticipated to exist between the defendant’s action and the avoidance
of harm.” M eraz-Valeta, 26 F.3d at 995. W e need not consider the first and third
requirements because M r. Patton clearly does not meet the traditional requirement
of imminence, as M r. Patton himself concedes. W e thus conclude that the district
court did not abuse its discretion by granting the government’s motion in limine
to exclude M r. Patton’s modified necessity defense.
V. Conclusion
Because we reject M r. Patton’s constitutional claims and uphold the district
court’s exclusion of the necessity defense, we AFFIRM the conviction.
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United States v. Patton
Court: Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
Date filed: 2006-06-20
Citations: 451 F.3d 615
Copy CitationsCombined Opinion