Source: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/11-94.html
Timestamp: 2015-09-02 08:56:46
Document Index: 525203155

Matched Legal Cases: ['§6928', '§6928', '§6928', '§3571', '§3572', '§6928', '§7']

SOUTHERN UNION CO. v. UNITED STATES | FindLaw
SOUTHERN UNION CO. v. UNITED STATES, (2012)
Argued: March 19, 2012 Decided: June 21, 2012
Petitioner Southern Union Company was convicted by a jury in federal court on one count of violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA) for having knowingly stored liquid mercury without a permit at a subsidiary's facility "on or about September 19, 2002 to October 19, 2004." Violations of the RCRA are punishable by, inter alia, a fine of not more than $50,000 for each day of violation. 42 U. S. C. §6928(d). At sentencing, the probation office calculated a maximum fine of $38.1 million, on the basis that Southern Union violated the RCRA for each of the 762 days from September 19, 2002, through October 19, 2004. Southern Union argued that imposing any fine greater than the 1-day penalty of $50,000 would be unconstitutional under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466, which holds that the Sixth Amendment's jury-trial guarantee requires that any fact (other than the fact of a prior conviction) that increases the maximum punishment authorized for a particular crime be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Southern Union contended that, based on the jury verdict and the District Court's instructions, the only violation the jury necessarily found was for one day. The District Court held that Apprendi applies to criminal fines, but concluded from the "content and context of the verdict all together" that the jury found a 762-day violation. The court therefore set a maximum potential fine of $38.1 million, from which it imposed a fine of $6 million and a "community service obligation" of $12 million. On appeal, the First Circuit disagreed with the District Court that the jury necessarily found a violation of 762 days. But the First Circuit affirmed the sentence because it held that Apprendi does not apply to criminal fines.
(a) Apprendi's rule is "rooted in longstanding common-law practice," Cunningham v. California, 549 U. S. 270, 281, and preserves the "historic jury function" of "determining whether the prosecution has proved each element of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt," Oregon v. Ice, 555 U. S. 160, 163. This Court has repeatedly affirmed Apprendi's rule by applying it to a variety of sentencing schemes that allow judges to find facts that increase a defendant's maximum authorized sentence. See Cunningham, 549 U. S., at 274−275; United States v. Booker, 543 U. S. 220, 226-227; Blakely v. Washington, 542 U. S. 296, 299-300; Ring v. Arizona, 536 U. S. 584, 588-589; Ap-prendi, 530 U. S., at 468-469. While the punishments at stake in these cases were imprisonment or a death sentence, there is no principled basis under Apprendi to treat criminal fines differently. Apprendi's "core concern"--to reserve to the jury "the determination of facts that warrant punishment for a specific statutory offense," Ice, 555 U. S., at 170--applies whether the sentence is a criminal fine or imprisonment or death. Criminal fines, like these other forms of punishment, are penalties inflicted by the sovereign for the commission of offenses. Fines were by far the most common form of noncapital punishment in colonial America and they continue to be frequently imposed today. And, the amount of a fine, like the maximum term of imprisonment or eligibility for the death penalty, is often determined by reference to particular facts. The Government argues that fines are less onerous than incarceration and the death sentence and therefore should be exempt from Apprendi. But where a fine is substantial enough to trigger the Sixth Amendment's jury-trial guarantee, Apprendi applies in full. Pp. 3−8.
(b) The "historical role of the jury at common law," which informs the "scope of the constitutional jury right," Ice, 555 U. S., at 170, supports applying Apprendi to criminal fines. To be sure, judges in the colonies and during the founding era had much discretion in determining whether to impose a fine and in what amount. But the exercise of such discretion is fully consistent with Apprendi, which permits courts to impose "judgment within the range prescribed by statute." 530 U. S., at 481 (emphasis in original). The more salient question is what role the jury played in prosecutions for offenses that pegged the amount of a fine to the determination of specified facts. A review of both state and federal decisions discloses that the predominant practice was for such facts to be alleged in the indictment and proved to the jury. The rule that juries must determine facts that set a fine's maximum amount is an application of the "two longstanding tenets of common-law criminal jurisprudence" on which Apprendi is based: first, "the 'truth of every accusation' against a defendant 'should afterwards be confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve of his equals and neighbours.' " Blakely, 542 U. S., at 301. And second, " 'an accusation which lacks any particular fact which the law makes essential to the punishment is . . . no accusation within the requirements of the common law, and is no accusation in reason.' " Ibid. Contrary to the Government's contentions, neither United States v. Murphy, 16 Pet. 203, nor United States v. Tyler, 7 Cranch 285, overcomes the ample historical evidence that juries routinely found facts that set maximum criminal fines. Pp. 8−14.
(c) The Government's remaining arguments, echoed by the dissent, are unpersuasive. The Government claims that facts relevant to a fine's amount typically quantify the harm caused by the defendant's offense, and do not define a separate set of acts for punishment. The Government contends that only the latter determination implicates Apprendi's concerns. But this argument rests on the rejected assumption that, in determining the maximum punishment for an offense, there is a constitutionally significant difference between a fact that is an "element" of the offense and one that is a "sentencing factor." Further, the facts the District Court found in imposing a fine on Southern Union are not fairly characterized as merely quantifying the harm the company caused.
The Government also argues that applying Apprendi to criminal fines will prevent States and the Federal Government from enacting statutes that calibrate the amount of a fine to a defendant's culp-ability. But legislatures are free to enact such statutes, so long as the statutes are administered in conformance with the Sixth Amendment.
Finally, the Government contends that requiring juries to determine facts related to fines will cause confusion, prejudice defendants, or be impractical. These policy arguments rehearse those made by the dissents in our prior Apprendi cases. They must be rejected because the rule the Government espouses is unconstitutional. In addition, because Apprendi is now more than a decade old, the reliance interests underlying the Government's arguments are by this point attenuated. Pp. 14−16.
The Sixth Amendment reserves to juries the determination of any fact, other than the fact of a prior conviction, that increases a criminal defendant's maximum potential sentence. Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466 (2000); Blakely v. Washington, 542 U. S. 296 (2004). We have applied this principle in numerous cases where the sentence was imprisonment or death. The question here is whether the same rule applies to sentences of criminal fines. We hold that it does.
Petitioner Southern Union Company is a natural gas distributor. Its subsidiary stored liquid mercury, a hazardous substance, at a facility in Pawtucket, Rhode Is-land. In September 2004, youths from a nearby apartment complex broke into the facility, played with the mer-cury, and spread it around the facility and complex. The complex's residents were temporarily displaced during the cleanup and most underwent testing for mercury poisoning.
In 2007, a grand jury indicted Southern Union on multiple counts of violating federal environmental statutes. As relevant here, the first count alleged that the company knowingly stored liquid mercury without a permit at the Pawtucket facility "[f]rom on or about September 19, 2002 until on or about October 19, 2004," App. 104, in violation of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA). See 90 Stat. 2812, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §6928(d)(2)(A). A jury convicted Southern Union on this count following a trial in the District Court for the District of Rhode Island. The verdict form stated that Southern Union was guilty of unlawfully storing liquid mercury "on or about September 19, 2002 to October 19, 2004." App. 140.
Violations of the RCRA are punishable by, inter alia, "a fine of not more than $50,000 for each day of violation." §6928(d). At sentencing, the probation office set a maximum fine of $38.1 million, on the basis that Southern Union violated the RCRA for each of the 762 days from September 19, 2002, through October 19, 2004. Southern Union objected that this calculation violated Apprendi because the jury was not asked to determine the precise duration of the violation. The company noted that the ver-dict form listed only the violation's approximate start date (i.e., "on or about"), and argued that the court's instructions permitted conviction if the jury found even a 1-day violation. Therefore, Southern Union maintained, the only violation the jury necessarily found was for one day, and imposing any fine greater than the single-day penalty of $50,000 would require factfinding by the court, in contravention of Apprendi.
The Government acknowledged the jury was not asked to specify the duration of the violation, but argued that Apprendi does not apply to criminal fines. The District Court disagreed and held that Apprendi applies. But the court concluded from the "content and context of the verdict all together" that the jury found a 762-day violation. App. to Pet. for Cert. 46a. The court therefore set a maximum potential fine of $38.1 million, from which it imposed a fine of $6 million and a "community service obligatio[n]" of $12 million. App. 154.
On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit rejected the District Court's conclusion that the jury necessarily found a violation of 762 days. 630 F. 3d 17, 36 (2010). But the Court of Appeals affirmed the sentence because it also held, again in contrast to the District Court, that Apprendi does not apply to criminal fines. 630 F. 3d, at 33-36. Other Circuits have reached the opposite conclusion. See United States v. Pfaff, 619 F. 3d 172 (CA2 2010) (per curiam); United States v. LaGrou Distribution Sys., Inc., 466 F. 3d 585 (CA7 2006). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, 565 U. S. ___ (2011), and now reverse.
This case requires us to consider the scope of the Sixth Amendment right of jury trial, as construed in Apprendi. Under Apprendi, "[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt." 530 U. S., at 490. The " 'statutory maximum' for Apprendi purposes is the maximum sentence a judge may impose solely on the basis of the facts reflected in the jury verdict or admitted by the defendant." Blakely, 542 U. S., at 303 (emphasis deleted). Thus, while judges may exercise discretion in sentencing, they may not "inflic[t] punishment that the jury's verdict alone does not allow." Id., at 304.
Apprendi's rule is "rooted in longstanding common-law practice." Cunningham v. California, 549 U. S. 270, 281 (2007). It preserves the "historic jury function" of "determining whether the prosecution has proved each element of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt." Oregon v. Ice, 555 U. S. 160, 163 (2009). We have repeatedly affirmed this rule by applying it to a variety of sentencing schemes that allowed judges to find facts that increased a defendant's maximum authorized sentence. See Cunningham, 549 U. S., at 274-275 (elevated "upper term" of impris-onment); United States v. Booker, 543 U. S. 220, 226227, 233-234 (2005) (increased imprisonment range for defendant under then-mandatory Federal Sentencing Guidelines); Blakely, 542 U. S., at 299-300 (increased im-prisonment above statutorily prescribed "standard range"); Ring v. Arizona, 536 U. S. 584, 588-589 (2002) (death penalty authorized upon finding existence of aggravating factors); Apprendi, 530 U. S., at 468-469 (extended term of imprisonment based on violation of a "hate crime" statute).
While the punishments at stake in those cases were imprisonment or a death sentence, we see no principled basis under Apprendi for treating criminal fines differ-ently. Apprendi's "core concern" is to reserve to the jury "the determination of facts that warrant punishment for a specific statutory offense." Ice, 555 U. S., at 170. That concern applies whether the sentence is a criminal fine or imprisonment or death. Criminal fines, like these other forms of punishment, are penalties inflicted by the sovereign for the commission of offenses. Fines were by far the most common form of noncapital punishment in colonial America.1 They are frequently imposed today, especially upon organizational defendants who cannot be imprisoned.2 And the amount of a fine, like the maximum term of imprisonment or eligibility for the death penalty, is of-ten calculated by reference to particular facts. Sometimes, as here, the fact is the duration of a statutory violation;3 under other statutes it is the amount of the defendant's gain or the victim's loss, or some other factor.4 In all such cases, requiring juries to find beyond a reasonable doubt facts that determine the fine's maximum amount is necessary to implement Apprendi's "animating principle": the "preservation of the jury's historic role as a bulwark between the State and the accused at the trial for an alleged offense." Ice, 555 U. S., at 168. In stating Apprendi's rule, we have never distinguished one form of punishment from another. Instead, our decisions broadly prohibit judicial factfinding that increases maximum criminal "sentence[s]," "penalties," or "punishment[s]"--terms that each undeniably embrace fines. E.g., Blakely, 542 U. S., at 304; Apprendi, 530 U. S., at 490; Ring, 536 U. S., at 589.
The Government objects, however, that fines are less onerous than incarceration and the death sentence. The Government notes that Apprendi itself referred to the physical deprivation of liberty that imprisonment occasions, see 530 U. S., at 484, and that we have placed more weight on imprisonment than on fines when construing the scope of the Sixth Amendment rights to counsel and jury trial. See Blanton v. North Las Vegas, 489 U. S. 538, 542-543 (1989) (jury trial); Scott v. Illinois, 440 U. S. 367, 373-374 (1979) (counsel). Therefore, the Government concludes, fines categorically "do not implicate" the "primary concerns motivating Apprendi." Brief for United States 23-25.
This argument fails because its conclusion does not fol-low from its premise. Where a fine is so insubstantial that the underlying offense is considered "petty," the Sixth Amendment right of jury trial is not triggered, and no Apprendi issue arises. See, e.g., Muniz v. Hoffman, 422 U. S. 454, 477 (1975) ($10,000 fine imposed on labor union does not entitle union to jury trial); see also Blanton, 489 U. S., at 541 (no jury trial right for "petty" offenses, as measured by the "severity of the maximum authorized penalty" (internal quotation marks omitted)). The same, of course, is true of offenses punishable by relatively brief terms of imprisonment--these, too, do not entitle a defendant to a jury trial. See id., at 543 (establishing a rebuttable presumption that offenses punishable by six months' imprisonment or less are petty); Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 159-162 (1968).
But not all fines are insubstantial, and not all offenses punishable by fines are petty. See, e.g., Mine Workers v. Bagwell, 512 U. S. 821, 838, n. 5 (1994) (criminal contempt fine of $52 million imposed on union "unquestionably is a serious contempt sanction" that triggers right of jury trial). The federal twice-the-gain-or-loss statute, in particular, see 18 U. S. C. §3571(d), has been used to obtain substantial judgments against organizational defendants. See, e.g., Amended Judgment in United States v. LG Display Co., Ltd., No. 08-CR-803-SI (ND Cal.), pp. 1-2 ($400 million fine for conviction of single count of violating Sherman Antitrust Act); Judgment in United States v. Siemens Aktiengesellschaft, No. 08-CR-367-RJL (D DC), pp. 1-2, 5 ($448.5 million fine for two violations of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act); United States Sentencing Commission, 2010 Annual Report, ch. 5, p. 38 (noting fine of $1.195 billion imposed on pharmaceutical corporation for violations of food and drug laws). And, where the defendant is an individual, a large fine may "engender 'a significant infringement of personal freedom.' " Blanton, 489 U. S., at 542 (quoting Frank v. United States, 395 U. S. 147, 151 (1969)); see also 18 U. S. C. §3572(a)(2) (requiring court to consider "the burden that the fine will impose upon the defendant" in determining whether to impose a fine and in what amount).
The Government thus asks the wrong question by comparing the severity of criminal fines to that of other punishments. So far as Apprendi is concerned, the relevant question is the significance of the fine from the perspective of the Sixth Amendment's jury trial guarantee. Where a fine is substantial enough to trigger that right, Apprendi applies in full. As we said in Cunningham, "Asking whether a defendant's basic jury-trial right is preserved, though some facts essential to punishment are reserved for determination by the judge, . . . is the very inquiry Apprendi's 'bright-line rule' was designed to exclude." 549 U. S., at 291.
This case is exemplary. The RCRA subjects Southern Union to a maximum fine of $50,000 for each day of violation. 42 U. S. C. §6928(d). The Government does not deny that, in light of the seriousness of that punishment, the company was properly accorded a jury trial. And the Government now concedes the District Court made factual findings that increased both the "potential and actual" fine the court imposed. Brief for United States 28. This is exactly what Apprendi guards against: judicial factfinding that enlarges the maximum punishment a defendant faces beyond what the jury's verdict or the defendant's admissions allow.
In concluding that the rule of Apprendi does not apply to criminal fines, the Court of Appeals relied on our decision in Ice. Ice addressed the question whether, when a defendant is convicted of multiple offenses, Apprendi forbids judges to determine facts that authorize the imposition of consecutive sentences. 555 U. S., at 164. In holding that Apprendi does not, Ice emphasized that juries historically played no role in deciding whether sentences should run consecutively or concurrently. See 555 U. S., at 168-169. The Court of Appeals reasoned that juries were similarly uninvolved in setting criminal fines. 630 F. 3d, at 35.5
The Court of Appeals was correct to examine the histor-ical record, because "the scope of the constitutional jury right must be informed by the historical role of the jury at common law." Ice, 555 U. S., at 170. See also, e.g., Blakely, 542 U. S., at 301-302; Apprendi, 530 U. S., at 477-484. But in our view, the record supports applying Apprendi to criminal fines. To be sure, judges in the col-onies and during the founding era "possessed a great deal of discretion" in determining whether to impose a fine and in what amount. Lillquist 640-641; see also Preyer 350. Often, a fine's range "was apparently without limit except insofar as it was within the expectation on the part of the court that it would be paid." Ibid. For some other offenses, the maximum fine was capped by statute. See, e.g., id., at 333 (robbery, larceny, burglary, and other offenses punishable in Massachusetts Bay Colony "by fines of up to £5"); Act of Feb. 28, 1803, ch. 9, §7, 2 Stat. 205 (any consul who gives a false certificate shall "forfeit and pay a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars, at the discretion of the court"); K. Stith & J. Cabranes, Fear of Judging: Sentencing Guidelines in the Federal Courts 9 (1998) (describing federal practice).
The exercise of such sentencing discretion is fully consistent with Apprendi, which permits courts to impose "judgment within the range prescribed by statute." 530 U. S., at 481 (emphasis in original). Nor, a fortiori