Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/423/212
Timestamp: 2016-07-25 14:16:18
Document Index: 766669796

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 922', '§ 922', '§ 922', '§ 922', '§ 922', '§ 922', '§ 922', '§ 922', '§ 922', '§ 922', '§ 922', '§ 922', '§ 922', '§ 922', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 1202', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 922', '§ 2', '§ 922', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 922', '§ 2', '§ 922', '§ 922', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 922']

Pearl BARRETT, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES. | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews Pearl BARRETT, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES.
423 U.S. 212 (96 S.Ct. 498, 46 L.Ed.2d 450)
Argued: Nov. 4, 1975.
Decided: Jan. 13, 1976.
The provision of the Gun Control Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. 922(h), making it unlawful for a convicted felon, inter alia, "to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce," held to apply to a convicted felon's intrastate purchase from a retail dealer of a firearm that previously, but independently of the felon's receipt, had been transported in interstate commerce from the manufacturer to a distributor and then from the distributor to the dealer. Pp. 215-225.
Petitioner Pearl Barrett has been convicted by a jury in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky of a violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(h),
a part of the Gun Control Act of 1968, Pub.L. 90-618, 82 Stat. 1213, amending the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, Pub.L. 90-351, 82 Stat. 197, enacted earlier the same year. The issue before us is whether § 922(h) has application to a purchaser's intrastate acquisition of a firearm that previously, but independently of the purchaser's receipt, had been transported in interstate commerce from the manufacturer to a distributor and then from the distributor to the dealer.
* In January 1967, petitioner was convicted in a Kentucky state court of housebreaking. He received a two-year sentence. On April 1, 1972, he purchased a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver over the counter from a Western Auto Store in Booneville, Ky., where petitioner resided.
The vendor, who was a local dentist as well as the owner of the store, and who was acquainted with petitioner, was a federally licensed firearms dealer. The weapon petitioner purchased had been manufactured in Massachusetts, shipped by the manufacturer to a distributor in North Carolina, and then received by the Kentucky dealer from the distributor in March 1972, a little less than a month prior to petitioner's purchase. The sale to Barrett was the firearm's first retail transaction. It was the only handgun then in the dealer's stock. Tr. 36-47.
Petitioner was charged with a violation of § 922(h). He pleaded not guilty. At the trial no evidence was presented to show that Barrett personally had participated in any way in the previous interstate movement of the firearm. The evidence was merely to the effect that he had purchased the revolver out of the local dealer's stock, and that the gun, having been manufactured and then warehoused in other States, had reached the dealer through interstate channels. At the close of the prosecution's case, Barrett moved for a directed verdict of acquittal on the ground that § 922(h) was not applicable to his receipt of the firearm.
The motion was denied. The court instructed the jury that the statute's interstate requirement was satisfied if the firearm at some time in its past had traveled in interstate commerce.
A verdict of guilty was returned. Petitioner received a sentence of three years, subject to the immediate parole eligibility provisions of 18 U.S.C. 4208(a)(2).
Had Congress intended to confine § 922(h) to direct interstate receipt, it would have so provided, just as it did in other sections of the Gun Control Act. See § 922(a)(3) (declaring it unlawful for a nonlicensee to receive in the State where he resides a firearm purchased or obtained "by such person outside that State"); § 922(j) (prohibiting the receipt of a stolen firearm "moving as . . . interstate . . . commerce"); and § 922(k) (prohibiting the receipt "in interstate . . . commerce" of a firearm the serial number of which has been removed). Statutes other than the Gun Control Act similarly utilize restrictive language when only direct interstate commerce is to be reached. See, e. g., 18 U.S.C. 659, 1084, 1201, 1231, 1951, 1952, 2313, 2315, and 2421, and 15 U.S.C. 77e. As we have said, there is no ambiguity in the words of § 922(h), and there is no justification for indulging in uneasy statutory construction. United States v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76, 95-96, 5 L.Ed. 37 (1820); Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298, 305, 77 S.Ct. 1064, 1069, 1 L.Ed.2d 1356 (1957); Huddleston v. United States, 415 U.S. 814, 831, 94 S.Ct. 1262, 1271, 39 L.Ed.2d 782 (1974). See United States v. Sullivan, 332 U.S. 689, 696, 68 S.Ct. 331, 335, 92 L.Ed. 297 (1948). There is no occasion here to resort to a rule of lenity, see Rewis v. United States, 401 U.S. 808, 812, 91 S.Ct. 1056, 1059, 28 L.Ed.2d 493 (1971); United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 347, 92 S.Ct. 515, 522, 30 L.Ed.2d 488 (1971), for there is no ambiguity that calls for a resolution in favor of lenity. A criminal statute, to be sure, is to be strictly construed, but it is "not to be construed so strictly as to defeat the obvious intention of the legislature." American Fur Co. v. United States, 2 Pet. 358, 367, 7 L.Ed. 450 (1829); Huddleston v. United States, 415 U.S., at 831, 94 S.Ct., at 1271.
Similarly, § 922(g) prohibits the same categories of potentially irresponsible persons from shipping or transporting any firearm in interstate commerce or, see 18 U.S.C. 2(b), causing it to be shipped interstate. Petitioner's proposed narrow construction of § 922(h) would reduce that section to a near redundancy with § 922(g), since almost every interstate shipment is likely to have been solicited or otherwise caused by the direct recipient. That proposed narrow construction would also create another anomaly: if a prohibited person seeks to buy from his local dealer a firearm that is not currently in the dealer's stock, and the dealer then orders it interstate, that person violates § 922(h), but under the suggested construction, he would not violate § 922(h) if the firearm were already on the dealer's shelf.
C. The legislative history is fully supportive of our construction of § 922(h). The Gun Control Act of 1968 was an amended and, for present purposes, a substantially identical version of Title IV of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. Each of the statutes enlarged and extended the Federal Firearms Act, 52 Stat. 1250 (1938). Section 922(h), although identical in its operative phrase with § 2(f) of the Federal Firearms Act, expanded the categories of persons prohibited from receiving firearms.
The new Act also added many prophylactic provisions, hereinabove referred to, governing intrastate as well as interstate transactions. See Zimring, Firearms and Federal Law: The Gun Control Act of 1968, 4 J. Legal Studies 133 (1975). But the 1938 Act, it was said, was designed "to prevent the crook and gangster, racketeer and fugitive from justice from being able to purchase or in any way come in contact with firearms of any kind." S.Rep.No. 1189, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 33 (1937). Nothing we have found in the committee reports or hearings on the 1938 legislation indicates any intention on the part of Congress to confine § 2(f) to direct interstate receipt of firearms.
The quoted observation, of course, is merely a recital as to what the District Court and the Court of Appeals in that case had held and a further statement that the Government had agreed that the construction by the lower courts was correct. Having made this observation, the Court then understandably moved on to the only issue in Tot, namely, the validity of the statutory presumption. The fact that the Government long ago took a narrow position on the reach of the 1938 Act may not serve to help its posture here, when it seemingly argues to the contrary, but it does not prevent the Government from arguing that the current gun control statute is broadly based and reaches a purchase such as that made by Barrett.
The second statement is more recent and appears in United States v. Bass, supra.
The Bass comment, of course, is dictum, for Bass had to do with a prosecution under 18 U.S.C.App. § 1202(a), a provision which was part of Title VII, not of Title IV, of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, as amended. Section 1202(a) concerned any member of stated categories of persons "who receives, possesses, or transports in commerce or affecting commerce . . . any firearm." The Government contended that the statute did not require proof of a connection with interstate commerce. The Court held, however, that the statute was ambiguous and that, therefore, it must be read to require such a nexus. In so holding, the Court noted the connection between Title VII and Title IV, and observed that although subsections of the two Titles addressed their prohibitions to some of the same people, each also reached groups not reached by the other. Then followed the dictum in question. The Court went on to state:
Furthermore, we are not willing to decide the present case on the assumption that Congress, in passing the Gun Control Act 25 years after Tot was decided, had the Court's casual recital in Tot in mind when it used language identical to that in the 1938 Act.
There is one mention of Tot in the debates, 114 Cong.Rec. 21807 (1968), and one mention in the reports, S.Rep.No. 1097, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 272, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1968, p. 2112 (1968) (additional views of Sens. Dirksen, Hruska, Thurmond, and Burdick). These reflect a concern with the fact that Tot eliminated the presumption of interstate movement, thus increasing the burden of proof on the Government. They do not focus on what showing was necessary to carry that burden of proof. Similarly, the few references to Tot in the hearings reflect objections to the elimination of the presumption, but mention only in passing the type of proof that the witness believed was necessary to satisfy § 2(f). See e. g., Hearings on S. 1, Amendment 90 to S. 1, S. 1853, and S. 1854 before Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 46 (1967); Hearings on H.R. 5037, H.R. 5038, H.R. 5384, H.R. 5385, and H.R. 5386 before Subcommittee No. 5 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 561-562, 564, 677-678. Nothing in this legislative history persuades us that Congress intended to adopt Tot's limited interpretation. If we were to conclude otherwise, we would fly in the face of, and ignore, obvious congressional intent at the price of a passing recital. See Girouard v. United States, 328 U.S. 61, 69-70, 66 S.Ct. 826, 829-830, 90 L.Ed. 1084 (1946). To hold, as the Court did in Bass, 404 U.S., at 350, 92 S.Ct., at 523, that Title VII, directed to a receipt of any firearm "in commerce or affecting commerce," requires only a showing that the firearm received previously traveled in interstate commerce, but that Title IV, relating to a receipt of any firearm "which has been shipped or transported in interstate . . . commerce," is limited to the receipt of the firearm as part of an interstate movement, would be inconsistent construction of sections of the same Act and, indeed, would be downgrading the stronger language and upgrading the weaker.
In meeting petitioner's contention that Tot v. United States, 319 U.S. 463, 63 S.Ct. 1241, 87 L.Ed. 1519 (1943), necessarily confines the offense created by 18 U.S.C. 922(h) to the receipt of a firearm in the course of an interstate shipment, the Court reads the Tot opinion as reciting but not adopting the lower courts' holdings that § 2(f) of the Federal Firearms Act of 1938 did not cover the intrastate receipt of a firearm that previously had moved in interstate commerce. Ante, at 221-222. I join the Court in this respect. Also, I find its construction of § 922(h) to be correct even if it is assumed, as Mr. Justice STEWART concludes, post, at 228-230 and n. 3, that the Tot decision did adopt the more limited construction of § 2(f).
It is noted that Congress was aware that after Tot, "in order to establish a violation of this statute, it is necessary to prove that a convicted felon found in possession of a firearm actually received it in the course of an interstate shipment."
From this it is inferred that in enacting § 922(h) Congress adopted Tot's interpretation of the glossed language of § 2(f). But the quoted statement simply describes the continuing effect of the gloss provided by the language of the invalidated presumption in § 2(f). Congressional awareness of the effect of Tot does not overcome the concededly plain language of § 922(h) or the force of the Court's analysis of the statutory scheme of which it is a part. Ante, at 216-219. Indeed I find that congressional understanding of the history of § 2(f), first with and then without its presumption, supports the Court's determination that § 922(h) "covers the intrastate receipt . . . of a firearm that previously had moved in interstate commerce." Ante, at 225.
The petitioner bought a revolver from the Western Auto Store in Booneville, Ky., in an over-the-counter retail sale. Within an hour, he was arrested for driving while intoxicated and the revolver was found on the floorboard of his car. The revolver had been manufactured in Massachusetts and shipped to the Booneville retailer from a North Carolina distributor. The prosecution submitted no evidence of any kind that the petitioner had participated in any interstate activity involving the revolver, either before or after its purchase. On these facts, he was convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. 922(h), which makes it unlawful for a former criminal offender like the petitioner, "to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce."
This clause first appeared in the predecessor of § 922(h), § 2(f) of the Federal Firearms Act of 1938, 52 Stat. 1250, 1251.
In Tot v. United States, 319 U.S. 463, 63 S.Ct. 1241, 87 L.Ed. 1519 (1943), the Court interpreted this statutory language to prohibit only receipt of firearms or ammunition as part of an interstate transaction:
Although the Tot Court was principally concerned with the constitutionality of the presumption established by the last clause of § 2(f),
its interpretation of the first clause of the statute was essential to its holding.
The statutory presumption was that possession of a firearm or ammunition by any person in the class specified in § 2(f) established receipt in violation of the statute. The Court in Tot held the presumption unconstitutional for lack of a rational connection between the fact proved and the facts presumed. 319 U.S., at 467-468, 63 S.Ct. at 1244-1245. The Court could not have reached that decision without first determining what set of facts needed to exist in order to constitute a violation of the statute.
The Tot case did not go unnoticed when 18 U.S.C. 922(h) was enacted in its present form in 1968, as the legislative history clearly reveals. Subcommittees of both the Senate and House Judiciary Committees in 1967 conducted hearings on bills to amend the Federal Firearms Act. At both hearings, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue explained the decision in Tot:
"The Supreme Court has declared (the presumption in § 2(f)) unconstitutional. In order to establish the violation of the statute it is necessary to find that the felon found in possession of the firearm actually received it in the course of interstate commerce or transportation." Hearings on H.R. 5037, H.R. 5038, H.R. 5384, H.R. 5385, and H.R. 5386 before Subcommittee No. 5 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 561 (1967).
In both hearings, the Commissioner was speaking in support of bills that omitted the presumption held unconstitutional in Tot, but that otherwise retained the same language there construed. See Hearings on S. 1, Amendment 90 to S. 1, S. 1853, and S. 1854, supra, at 16, 43-44; Hearings on H.R. 5037, H.R. 5038, H.R. 5384, H.R. 5385, and H.R. 5386, supra, at 13, 555. That is precisely the form in which the statute now before us, § 922(h), was enacted in 1968. It is thus evident that Congress was aware of Tot and adopted its interpretation of the statutory language in enacting the present law. See Francis v. Southern Pacific Co., 333 U.S. 445, 449-450, 68 S.Ct. 611, 613, 92 L.Ed. 798 (1948); Apex Hosiery Co. v. Leader, 310 U.S. 469, 488-489, 60 S.Ct. 982, 989, 84 L.Ed. 1311 (1940); Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Estate of Church, 335 U.S. 632, 682, 690, 69 S.Ct. 322, 352-358, 93 L.Ed. 288 (1949) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).