Opinion ID: 725046
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Garcia's Constructive Amendment Claim

Text: 33 Garcia argues that his conviction must be reversed because the district court's charge to the jury on the element of interstate commerce permitted a constructive amendment of the indictment. The indictment alleged that the firearm involved had been shipped in or affecting interstate commerce, but made no express mention of foreign commerce. The district court instructed the jury that in order to satisfy the commerce element, it was sufficient for the government to prove that the firearm in question had, at some time previous to the Defendant's possession of it, traveled across a state line. At trial, the government proved only that the firearm had been manufactured in Italy and was possessed by Garcia in Connecticut. The government did not prove that the firearm had traveled between states. Garcia claims, therefore, that the district court's instruction, which permitted the jury to find that the commerce element had been satisfied by proof of a connection to foreign commerce, rather than interstate commerce, enabled the jury to convict him for a crime that had not been charged in the indictment. This argument is without merit. 34 Although it would have been preferable for the government to have erred on the side of inclusiveness in drafting the indictment, its failure to refer to foreign commerce does not render Garcia's conviction invalid. The language of 18 U.S.C. § 921 argues against Garcia's claim. That statute, which defines the terms used in 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), in relevant part provides as follows: 35 The term interstate or foreign commerce includes commerce between any place in a State and any place outside of that State, or within any possession of the United States ... or the District of Columbia, but such term does not include commerce between places within the same State but through any place outside of that State. 36 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(2). It is plain that the statute itself refers to interstate or foreign commerce as one concept. In addition, several of our sister circuits have found expressly that the term interstate or foreign commerce is a single unitary concept rather than two separate bases for jurisdiction. See United States v. Alvarez, 972 F.2d 1000, 1003-04 (9th Cir.1992), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 977, 113 S.Ct. 1427, 122 L.Ed.2d 795 (1993); United States v. Young, 730 F.2d 221, 224 (5th Cir.1984); United States v. McRary, 665 F.2d 674, 678 (5th Cir. Unit B) (The word 'commerce' is consistently preceded in the statute by 'interstate or foreign' without any hint that 'commerce' should have separate meanings for each.) (footnote omitted), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 1011, 102 S.Ct. 2306, 73 L.Ed.2d 1307 (1982); cf. United States v. Carter, 981 F.2d 645, 648 (2d Cir.1992) (defendant was on notice that the pistol he possessed had travelled to Vermont via interstate commerce because the pistol was imprinted with the words Made in West Germany), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 1023, 113 S.Ct. 1827, 123 L.Ed.2d 456 (1993). We agree and hold that by referencing interstate commerce in the indictment, the concept of foreign commerce was included as well. Therefore, there was no impermissible constructive amendment of the indictment by the district court.