Source: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/524/1.html
Timestamp: 2017-01-24 05:13:43
Document Index: 649230049

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 371', '§1956', '§1957', '§2', '§ 3237', '§1956', '§3237', '§ 2', '§3', '§371', '§ 1956', '§1957', '§371', '§1956', '§1957', '§ 3237', '§3237', '§2', '§1956', '§ 3237', '§3237', '§ 2', '§3', '§ 3237', '§ 371', '§1', '§ 922']

UNITED STATES v. CABRALES | FindLaw
UNITED STATES v. CABRALES, (1998)
Argued: April 29, 1998 Decided: June 1, 1998
An indictment returned in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri charged respondent Cabrales, as sole defendant, with conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 371 to violate §1956(a)(1)(B)(ii) (conducting a financial transaction to avoid a transaction-reporting requirement) (Count I), and with money laundering in violation of the latter section (Count II) and §1957 (engaging in a monetary transaction in criminally derived property of a value greater than $10,000) (Count III). The indictment alleged that, in January 1991, Cabrales deposited $40,000 with the AmSouth Bank of Florida and, within a week, made four separate $9,500 withdrawals from that bank. The money deposited and withdrawn was traceable to illegal cocaine sales in Missouri. Cabrales moved to dismiss the indictment in its entirety for improper venue. The District Court denied the motion as to Count I, the conspiracy count, but dismissed Counts II and III, the money-laundering counts, because the money-laundering activity occurred entirely in Florida. In affirming that dismissal, the Eighth Circuit noted that the Constitution, Art. III, §2, cl. 3, and Amdt. 6, as well as Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 18, requires that a person be tried where the charged offense was committed. While recognizing that a continuing offense "begun in one district and completed in another . . . may be . . . prosecuted in any district in which such offense was begun, continued, or completed," 18 U.S.C. § 3237(a), the court said that Cabrales was not accused of a continuing offense, but was charged with money laundering transactions that began, continued, and were completed only in Florida. It was of no moment that the money came from Missouri, the court explained, because Cabrales dealt with it only in Florida, the money-laundering counts alleged no act committed by Cabrales in Missouri, and the Gov ernment did not assert that Cabrales transported the money from Missouri to Florida.
. Here, the crimes charged in Counts II and III are defined in statutory proscriptions, §§1956(a)(1)(B)(ii) and 1957, that interdict only the financial transactions (acts located entirely in Florida), not the anterior criminal conduct that yielded the funds allegedly laundered. Contrary to the Government's contention, the crimes charged in those counts do not fit under §3237(a) as offenses begun in Missouri and completed in Florida, but are crimes that took place wholly within Florida. Notably, the counts at issue do not charge Cabrales with conspiracy; they do not link her to, or assert her responsibility for, acts done by others. Nor do they charge her as an aider or abettor, punishable as a principal, in the Missouri drug trafficking, see 18 U.S.C. § 2. Rather, those counts charge her with criminal activity "after the fact" of an offense begun and completed by others. Cf. §3. Whenever a defendant acts "after the fact" to conceal a crime, it might be said, as the Government urges, that the first crime is an essential element of the second, and that the second facilitated the first or made it profitable by impeding its detection. But the question here is the place appropriate to try the "after the fact" actor. It is immaterial whether that actor knew where the first crime was committed. The money launderer must know she is dealing with funds derived from specified unlawful activity, here, drug trafficking, but the Missouri venue of that activity is, as the Eighth Circuit said, of no moment. Money laundering arguably might rank as a continuing offense, triable in more than one place, if the launderer acquired the funds in one district and transported them into another, but that is tellingly not this case. Neither Hyde v. United States, 225 U.S. 347
, supports the Government's position that money launderers can in all cases be prosecuted at the place where the funds they handled were generated. Hyde involved a conspiracy prosecution in which the Court held venue proper in the District of Columbia based on overt acts committed by a co-conspirator in the District. Palliser concerned a prosecution for mailings from New York to Connecticut in which the Court held Connecticut venue proper because the mailings were completed in that State. By contrast, the counts here at issue allege no conspiracy, but describe activity in which Cabrales alone engaged. Nor do they charge that she dispatched any missive from one State into another; instead, they portray her and the money she deposited and withdrew as moving inside Florida only. Finally, the Court rejects the Government's contention that efficiency warrants trying Cabrales in Missouri because evidence there, and not in Florida, shows that the money she allegedly laundered derived from unlawful activity. The Government is not disarmed from showing that Cabrales is in fact linked to the drugtrafficking. She can be, and indeed has been, charged with conspiring with the drug dealers in Missouri. If the Government can prove the agreement it has alleged in Count I, Cabrales can be prosecuted in Missouri for that confederacy, and her Florida money laundering could be shown as overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. See §371. As the Government acknowledged, the difference in her sentence probably would be negligible. Pp. 4-8.
This case presents a question of venue, specifically, the place appropriate for trial on charges of money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(B)(ii) (conducting a financial transaction to avoid a transaction-reporting requirement) and §1957 (engaging in a monetary transaction in criminally derived property of a value greater than $10,000). The laundering alleged in the indictment occurred entirely in Florida. The currency purportedly laundered derived from the unlawful distribution of cocaine in Missouri. The defendant, respondent Vickie S. Cabrales, is not alleged to have transported funds from Missouri to Florida. Nor is she charged, in the counts before us, with participation in the Missouri cocaine distribution that generated the funds in question. In accord with the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, we hold that Missouri is not a proper place for trial of the money laundering offenses at issue.
In a three-count indictment returned in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Cabrales, as sole defendant, was charged with the following offenses: conspiracy to avoid a transaction-reporting requirement, in violation of 18 U. S. C. §§371, 1956(a)(1)(B)(ii) (Count I); conducting a financial transaction to avoid a transaction-reporting requirement, in violation of §1956(a)(1)(B)(ii) (Count II); and engaging in a monetary transaction in criminally derived property of a value greater than $10,000, in violation of §1957 (Count III). The indictment alleged that, in January 1991, Cabrales deposited $40,000 with the AmSouth Bank of Florida and, within a week's span, made four separate withdrawals of $9,500 each from that bank. The money deposited and withdrawn was traceable to illegal sales of cocaine in Missouri.
(1946)). "Continuing offenses," the Court of Appeals recognized, those "begun in one district and completed in another," 18 U.S.C. § 3237(a), may be tried " 'in any district in which such [an] offense was begun, continued, or completed.' " 109 F. 3d, at 472 (quoting §3237(a)).
The Constitution twice safeguards the defendant's venue right: Article III, §2, cl. 3 instructs that "Trial of all Crimes . . . shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed"; the Sixth Amendment calls for trial "by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." Rule 18 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, providing that "prosecution shall be had in a district in which the offense was committed," echoes the constitutional commands.
. Here, the crimes described in Counts II and III are defined in statutory proscriptions, 18 U. S. C. §§1956(a)(1)(B)(ii), 1957, that interdict only the financial transactions (acts located entirely in Florida), not the an terior criminal conduct that yielded the funds allegedly laundered.
Congress has provided by statute for offenses "begun in one district and completed in another"; such offenses may be "prosecuted in any district in which [the] offense was begun, continued, or completed." 18 U.S.C. § 3237(a). The Government urges that the money-laundering crimes described in Counts II and III of the indictment against Cabrales fit the §3237(a) description. We therefore confront and decide this question: Do those counts charge crimes begun in Missouri and completed in Florida, rendering venue proper in Missouri, or do they delineate crimes that took place wholly within Florida?
Notably, the counts at issue do not charge Cabrales with conspiracy; they do not link her to, or assert her responsibility for, acts done by others. Nor do they charge her as an aider or abettor in the Missouri drug trafficking. See 18 U.S.C. § 2 (one who aids or abets an offense "is punishable as a principal"). Cabrales is charged in the moneylaundering counts with criminal activity "after the fact" of an offense begun and completed by others. Cf. §3 ("Whoever, knowing that an offense against the United States has been committed, . . . assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his . . . punishment, is an accessory after the fact," punishable not as a principal, but by a term of imprisonment or fine generally "not more than one-half the maximum . . . prescribed for the punishment of the principal[.]").
-268. The Palliser opinion simply recognizes that a mailing to Connecticut is properly ranked as an act completed in that State. See 18 U.S.C. § 3237(a) ("Any offense involving the use of the mails . . . is a continuing offense and . . . may be . . . prosecuted in any district from, through, or into which such . . . mail matter . . . moves."); see also United States v. Johnson, 323 U.S. 273, 275
But if Cabrales is in fact linked to the drug-trafficking activity, the Government is not disarmed from showing that is the case. She can be, and indeed has been, charged with conspiring with the drug dealers in Missouri. If the Government can prove the agreement it has alleged, Cabrales can be prosecuted in Missouri for that confederacy, and her money laundering in Florida could be shown as overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. See 18 U.S.C. § 371 (requiring proof of an "act to effect the object of the conspiracy"). As the Government acknowledged, the difference in the end result "probably . . . would be negligible." Tr. of Oral Arg. 52; see United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual §1B1.3 (Nov. 1995) (providing for consideration of "Relevant Conduct" in determining sentence).
] Cf. United States v. Lanoue , 137 F. 3d 656, 661 (CA1 1998) (stating that crime of being a felon in possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), occurs only where the firearm is actually possessed). FindLaw Career Center
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