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Parties Involved:
Patrick Baucum
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 12, 1995 Decided October 6, 1995

No. 94-3040

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

PATRICK BAUCUM,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 92cr00423)

Thomas G. Corcoran, Jr., appointed by the Court, argued the cause and filed the briefsfor appellant.

Molly A. Meegan, Assistant United States Attorney, argued the cause for appellee, with whom Eric

H. Holder, Jr., United States Attorney, John R. Fisher and Steven J. McCool, Assistant United States

Attorneys, were on the brief. Roy W. McLeese, III, Assistant United States Attorney, entered an

appearance.

Before: WALD, SILBERMAN and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM: In 1993, appellant Patrick Baucum was convicted under 21 U.S.C. § 860(a),

known as the "schoolyard statute," for distributing cocaine within 1,000 feet of a school. On appeal,

Baucumarguesthat the Supreme Court'srationale in United States v. Lopez, 115 S. Ct. 1624 (1995),

decided after Baucum'strial, exposesthe schoolyard statute as an unconstitutional exercise offederal

lawmaking power in violation of the commerce clause, U.S. CONST., art. I, § 8, cl. 3. The appellant

raises this challenge for the first time on appeal, but argues that this circuit's supervening-decision

doctrine excuses his failure to preserve his complaint at trial. Because we hold that the

supervening-decision doctrine does not apply in this case, we decline to rule on an issue presented

for the first time in the Court of Appeals. Accordingly, we affirm Baucum's conviction.

I. BACKGROUND

Patrick Baucum was convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. § 860(a), which providesfor twice the

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maximum punishment and at least twice any term of supervised release authorized by statute for a

drug sale if the sale occurs within 1,000 feet of a school or 100 feet of a youth center, swimming

pool, or video arcade.

At Baucum's trial, Detective Prather of the Metropolitan Police Department testified that on

October 3, 1991, she purchased two plastic baggies containing an off-white rock substance from a

man named "Pat" with his right arm in a sling. After the sale, the detective identified the appellant

by photo, in person, and finally, at trial. The prosecution introduced corroborating evidence that a

patient named Patrick Baucum had been treated for a right forearm fracture at George Washington

Medical Center shortly before October 3, 1991.

At trial, the government also presented evidence that the baggies contained 52.14 grams of

cocaine base, and that the apartment in which the sale took place lies within 1,000 feet of Kramer

Junior High, an operating school. A jury con- victed Baucum of violating 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1)

and 841(b)(1)(A)(iii), for distributing 50 grams or more of crack cocaine, and § 806(a), the

schoolyard statute, for selling drugs within 1,000 feet of a school. On March 1, 1994, the conviction

on the first count was set aside as a lesser offense included in the second count. Baucum received

a sentence of 151 months in prison, to be followed by ten years of supervised release.

II. DISCUSSION

Baucum now argues that the Supreme Court's decision in Lopez throws into question the

constitutionality of the schoolyard statute under which he was convicted. In United States v. Lopez,

115 S. Ct. 1624 (1995), the Court affirmed a Fifth Circuit decision invalidating, as exceeding the

scope ofthe commerce clause, another provision ofthe Crime ControlAct of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-

647, 101st Cong., 2d Sess., 104 Stat. 4789-4968, which made possession of a firearm within 1,000

feet of a school a federal offense. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(q). Appellant claims that the Court's rationale

also invalidates § 860(a), the schoolyard drug provision.

We are spared inquiry into the merits of Baucum's commerce clause challenge, however,

because he failed to preserve thisissue for appeal. "Absent "exceptional circumstances,' the court of

appealsis not a forumin which a litigant can present legal theoriesthat it neglected to raise in a timely

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1We had upheld the constitutionality of § 860(a) against equal protection and due process

challenges, United States v. Holland, 810 F.2d 1215 (D.C. Cir. 1987), but had never addressed

the commerce clause claim. Only the Ninth Circuit had specifically rejected the argument the

defendant put forth in this case. See United States v. McDougherty, 920 F.2d 569, 572 (9th Cir.

1990), cert. denied, 499 U.S. 911 (1991) (rejecting commerce clause challenge to statute

enhancing penalty for drug sales within 1,000 feet of a school); United States v. Thornton, 901

F.2d 738, 741 (9th Cir. 1990) (same). 

manner in proceedings below." Kattan by Thomas v. District of Columbia, 995 F.2d 274, 278 (D.C.

Cir. 1993), cert. denied, 114 S. Ct. 1398 (1994). Although we ordinarily will not pass on an issue

a party failed to raise in the lower court, see, e.g., Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 120 (1976),

Baucum argues that Lopez constitutes a "supervening decision" as we explained that term in United

States v. Washington, 12 F.3d 1128 (D.C. Cir. 1994). We disagree.

In Washington, we explained that, under the supervening-decision doctrine, we will consider

an issue not raised at trial "where a supervening decision has changed the law in appellant'sfavor and

the law was so well-settled at the time of trial that any attempt to challenge it would have appeared

pointless." Washington, 12 F.3d at 1139 (D.C. Cir. 1994). In that case, however, we declined to

apply the doctrine because we could not say that the law at the time of trial had "appear[ed] so clear

as to foreclose any possibility ofsuccess." Id. We recently reaffirmed this standard in United States

v. Rhodes, No. 92-3132, slip opinion ("slip op.") at 4 (D.C. Cir. April 10, 1995).

Baucum faces the same difficulty as Washington. The law in this circuit at the time of trial

was not so clear asto render the appellant's commerce clause challenge pointless. Baucum's reliance

on our supervening-decision doctrine failsfor two reasons. First, neither the Supreme Court nor this

circuit had definitively ruled that this statute, or even one like it, fell within Congress' commerce

clause powers.1 Thus, there was no reason for the appellant to assume at the time of trial that his

challenge would be futile. See Kattan by Thomas, 995 F.2d at 276 (petitioner's claimnot futile where

circuit had not ruled on the issue); see also Washington, 12 F.3d at 1139 (doctrine did not apply

where no court of appeals had upheld the jury instruction challenged on appeal).

Second, the Fifth Circuit's opinion in Lopez, which the Supreme Court ultimately affirmed,

issued more than two months prior to Baucum's trial. Thus, the Supreme Court's rationale in Lopez

had already been accepted by the Fifth Circuit and was therefore available to Baucum at the time of

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2We are unconvinced that a footnote in the Fifth Circuit's opinion, in which the court

distinguished the 1,000-foot gun possession provision and the 1,000-foot drug dealing provision

and suggests that the latter would survive a commerce clause challenge, rendered the commerce

clause claim "unavailable" to Baucum. See United States v. Lopez, 2 F.3d 1342, 1366 n.50 (5th

Cir. 1993), aff'd, 115 S. Ct. 1624 (1995). 

trial.2 Without addressing the question whether Lopez provides authority for Baucum's claim, we can

nevertheless determine that it cannot constitute supervening authority, since it was available to the

appellant at trial.

III. CONCLUSION

Because the appellant failed to raise his commerce clause challenge at trial, and the Supreme

Court's intervening decision in Lopez did not render a previously pointless argument legally feasible,

we decline to reach the merits of Baucum's claim. Accordingly, his conviction is

Affirmed.

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