Opinion ID: 779927
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Act, its history and Supreme Court interpretation

Text: 23 The Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951, provides in relevant part: 24 (a) Whoever in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by robbery or extortion or attempts or conspires so to do, or commits or threatens physical violence to any person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of this section shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both. 25 (b) As used in this section — 26 ... 27 (3) The term `commerce' means commerce within the District of Columbia, or any Territory or Possession of the United States; all commerce between any point in a State, Territory, Possession, or the District of Columbia and any point outside thereof; all commerce between points within the same State through any place outside such State; and all other commerce over which the United States has jurisdiction. 11 28 It was originally enacted July 3, 1946, ch. 537, Pub.L. 486, 60 Stat. 420, 12 as an amendment to the generally similar Anti-Racketeering Act of June 18, 1934 (the 1934 Act), Pub.L. 376, 48 Stat. 979-80. 13 The Hobbs Act was occasioned by the holding in United States v. Local 807, 315 U.S. 521, 62 S.Ct. 642, 86 L.Ed. 1004 (1942) that the 1934 Act, by virtue of its exclusion relating to an employer's payment of wages to an employee and its provision indicating an intent not to diminish union rights, did not apply to the activities of members of a New York City truck drivers union who, by violence or threats, extracted payments for themselves from out-of-state truckers in return for the unwanted and superfluous service of driving the trucks to and from the city. Id., at 643-44, 649; United States v. Enmons, 410 U.S. 396, 93 S.Ct. 1007, 1011, 35 L.Ed.2d 379 (1973) ([As] frequently emphasized on the floor of the House, the limited effect of the bill was to shut off the possibility opened by the Local 807 case, that union members could use their protected status to exact payments from employers for imposed, unwanted and superfluous services.). 14 29 The Senate Report on S. 2248, which (as amended) became the 1934 Act, states that the nearest approach to prosecution of racketeers as such has been under the Sherman Antitrust Act but such prosecutions have been hampered by the requirement of proving conspiracy or monopoly and by being merely a misdemeanor, and that the proposed bill is designed to avoid many of the embarrassing limitations ... of the Sherman Act, and to extend Federal jurisdiction over all restraints of any commerce within the scope of the Federal Government's constitutional powers. S. Rep. 532, 73rd Cong., 2nd Sess. (1934). The House Report on S. 2248, which recommends a rewritten form of S. 2248, states this is the so-called `antiracketeering bill' for the suppression of racketeering in interstate commerce, and quotes a memorandum from Attorney General Cummings noting that the bill, with the suggested amendments, had been approved by representatives of organized labor and that The Sherman Antitrust Act is too restricted in its terms and the penalties thereunder are too moderate to make that act an effective weapon in prosecuting racketeers. The antiracketeering bill would extend the Federal jurisdiction in those cases where racketeering acts are related to interstate commerce and are therefore of concern to the Nation as a whole. H. Rep. 1833, 73rd Cong., 2nd Sess. (1934). Despite the breadth of some of this language, it may be seriously doubted that Congress then contemplated that it was making a federal crime the plain vanilla cash robbery from a local retail store of the sort here involved. Moreover, at that time the federal government's commerce power was generally viewed far less expansively than it later came to be. See Lopez, 115 S.Ct. at 1628. The then view of the commerce power is also suggested by S. Rep. 1189, 75th Cong., 1st Sess. (1937), the report of the principal congressional committee (the Copeland Committee) working on the 1934 Act ( see United States v. Culbert, 435 U.S. 371, 98 S.Ct. 1112, 1115 & n. 6, 55 L.Ed.2d 349 (1978)), recounting its investigations, commencing in 1933, into racketeering and the recommendations it had made for legislation (including the 1934 Act). This report reflects an understanding that there were meaningful limits on the commerce power. For example, the report mentions the Poultry Racket practiced upon the live-poultry business in New York City, to which the poultry comes from the Southern and Midwestern states, and, due to the rackets, the charge for shipping a carload of poultry from Chicago to New York was less than the charge for its unloading and delivery in New York City. Id. at 16, 17. The report notes [w]hile some phases of the poultry racket were of a local nature and not within Federal jurisdiction, the committee felt that insofar as the transportation and distribution of live poultry was interstate in character, the necessary legislation should be enacted.... Id. at 18 (emphasis added). The report also discusses the `kick-back' racket ... that nefarious practice of requiring the employee to give back to his employer a percentage of his earnings, id., observes, respecting the kick-back racket, that a great proportion of the complaints came from the building trades but [i]t is, of course, practiced in other industries, id. at 19, and concludes, respecting the kick-back racket, that: After a thorough study of the testimony given and the complaints made, the committee concluded that the majority of the cases presented were of a local nature and were not within the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. But it was decided that the committee could effectuate the purpose of certain Federal statutes concerning rates of wages to be paid on work done under [Federal] Government contracts. Id. at 20 (emphasis added). 15 30 By the time the Hobbs Act eventually passed, the Supreme Court had already begun its articulation of a Commerce Clause power greatly expanded over that as previously defined. See Lopez, 115 S.Ct. at 1628. However, this does not seem to have been a matter at all the subject of consideration by Congress in enacting the Hobbs Act, and the Act was merely directed at changing the result in the Local 807 case. See note 14 and accompanying text, supra. The wording of the Hobbs Act did not in any presently meaningful way change the 1934 Act's interstate commerce nexus requirement. 16 31 Nor is any more expansive relation to interstate commerce suggested by the Congressional committee reports on H.R. 32, the bill which became the Hobbs Act. The House Committee on the Judiciary report states that the bill is a successor to similar bills introduced in the 77th and 78th Congresses (the first not acted on, the second passing the House but not acted on by the Senate), and that the bill's purpose is to prevent interference with interstate commerce by robbery or extortion. H. Rep. 288, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. (1945), at 1. It goes on to say that the bill 32 is an amendment of the existing antiracketeering law which was enacted in 1934. It was passed in an effort to eliminate racketeering in relation to interstate commerce, of concern to the Nation as a whole. That statute came under examination of the Supreme Court in United States v. Local 807, and the opinion in that case is set out in full, both the majority opinion and the dissent:, id. at 1, 2, 33 which opinions the report then proceeds to quote in full. Id. at 2-9. Thereafter, the report recites that the bill's objective is to prevent anyone from obstructing, delaying, or affecting commerce, or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce by robbery or extortion. Id. at 9. The concluding section of the report commences by stating The Congress does not need to be reminded that the Constitution of the United States confers on it the exclusive and unlimites [sic] power to regulate interstate commerce, id. at 10 (emphasis added), that the members of the Constitutional Convention agreed that our Federal Government would be destroyed if barriers should be erected in any way to impede the free flow of interstate commerce, and, finally, that This bill would outlaw two kinds of criminal interference with interstate commerce. Id. Certainly what this report is concerned with is interference with the movement of articles in interstate commerce, with interstate commerce itself. 17 34 The debates in the House are wholly consistent with this. 18 As previously observed, these debates reflect that the sole purpose and effect of the Hobbs Act was to override the Local 807 case and remove the exemption from the 1934 Act which that case was thought to create for union members. See note 14, supra, and accompanying text. Two other aspects of these debates should be mentioned. 35 First, the discussion of the evils the pending bill was designed to eliminate focused almost entirely on the interruption of commodity shipments actually moving in interstate commerce, principally agricultural commodities being carried by truck across state lines. 19 36 Other aspects of the debate likewise reflect an emphasis that the bill applied only to interstate commerce, without any broad reading of that concept. See, e.g., 89 Cong. Rec. 3210 (1943) (It is directed against robbery and extortion when used to obstruct the free flow of goods in interstate commerce, no matter who the offenders may be.) (Rep. Hancock); 91 Cong. Rec. 11843 (1943) (... it is the duty of Congress to protect its citizens and the people who use the highways in interstate commerce. Remember, this proposal applies to interstate commerce only. ... if interstate commerce is being interfered with, and if the farmers and truckers, who take food into New York from the surrounding territory and States, must submit to the treatment outlined by Chief Justice Stone, then it seems clear that it is the obligation of the Congress to furnish national protection in these interstate operations).  (emphasis added) (Rep. Michener); id. (Rep. Graham. Is not this bill limited to interstate commerce alone ? Rep. Michener. Certainly.; emphasis added); id. (Rep. Robsion. Would this apply to those conditions in a number of other States where they meet and overturn milk trucks and do other things like that? Rep. Michener. This bill applies to interstate commerce only. ; emphasis added); id. at 11912 (... the sole and simple purpose, the single purpose, of this bill is to do the best we can to protect interstate commerce and free the highways and streets of this country of robbers) (Rep. Hobbs). The following exchange is similarly relevant: 37 Mr. GRANGER. This applies only to interstate commerce, does it not? 38 Mr. SPRINGER. It applies to interstate commerce. 39 Mr. GRANGER. It would not affect a farmer who picked up produce within his own State and delivered it within his own State? That would be intrastate commerce? 40 Mr. SPRINGER. Yes. 41 Mr. GRANGER. What is interstate commerce? Is a farmer who crosses the State line with his own property engaged in interstate commerce? 42 Mr. SPRINGER. There is no doubt but that he is engaged in interstate commerce when he crosses a State line. 43 Mr. ROBSION of Kentucky. A transaction within a State may be interstate commerce if it oppresses and interrupts seriously or in a substantial way goods moving from one State to another? 44 Mr. SPRINGER. The gentleman is entirely correct. That has been defined by judicial decisions. Id. at 11910. 45 We are aware of nothing in the legislative history relating or referring to the aggregation principle or anything comparable to it as applicable to discrete intrastate actions which individually have only a minimal, indirect and attenuated effect on interstate commerce. 46 This legislative history strongly suggests to us that Congress in enacting the Hobbs Act was concerned with protecting against relatively direct obstruction of the actual movement of goods in interstate commerce, and did not contemplate its application to robberies of local retail stores such as those here. 20 However, the Supreme Court in Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 80 S.Ct. 270, 4 L.Ed.2d 252 (1960), stated that the Hobbs Act speaks in broad language, manifesting a purpose to use all the constitutional power Congress has to punish interference with interstate commerce by extortion, robbery or physical violence. The Act outlaws such interference `in any way or degree.' 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a) ... Id. at 272. The victim there was extorted of some $31,000 to avoid cancellation of his contract to supply from his Pennsylvania plant concrete for the construction of a Pennsylvania steel mill; the victim depended on shipments of sand to him from outside of Pennsylvania to make the concrete, and such shipments would have slackened or stopped had his contract to supply the steel mill job been cancelled. Id. The Court observed that [i]t was to free commerce from such destructive burdens that the Hobbs Act was passed, citing United States v. Green, 350 U.S. 415, 76 S.Ct. 522, 100 L.Ed. 494 (1956). Stirone, at 272. 21 Stirone went on to state that it did not have to decide the more difficult question of whether an adequate interstate commerce nexus would have been shown by the evidence that the steel mill would produce steel to be shipped in interstate commerce. Id. at 272. Later, in United States v. Culbert, 435 U.S. 371, 98 S.Ct. 1112, 55 L.Ed.2d 349 (1978), the court stated that the in any way or degree ... affected commerce ... by robbery or extortion words of the Hobbs Act do not lend themselves to restrictive interpretation, and proceeded to quote Stirone's statement that they manifest `a purpose to use all the constitutional power Congress has to punish interference with interstate commerce by extortion, robbery or physical violence.' Culbert at 1113. 22 47 In Jones v. United States, 529 U.S. 848, 120 S.Ct. 1904, 146 L.Ed.2d 902 (2000), the Court construed the federal arson statute, 18 U.S.C. § 844(i), as not extending to arson of a home insured by an out-of-state insurer, financed by an out-of-state lender, and furnished with gas from out-of-state, relying in part on the principle of avoiding a statutory construction under which `grave and doubtful constitutional questions arise,' and stating [g]iven the concerns brought to the fore by Lopez, it is appropriate to avoid the constitutional question that would arise were we to read § 844(i) to render the `traditionally local criminal conduct' in which petitioner Jones engaged `a matter for federal enforcement.' Jones at 1911, 1912. Accordingly, in Jones, the court read the words used in in section 844(i) as modifying any activity affecting interstate ... commerce, so that an owner-occupied residence not used for any commercial purpose does not qualify as property `used in' commerce or commerce-affecting activity within the meaning of section 844(i). Id. at 1908, 1910-11. However, the Hobbs Act contains no comparable special language upon which an analogous limiting construction can be focused. It does not at all differentiate between robberies which in any way or degree obstruct[], delay[], or affect[] commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce. Thus, driven by the above noted language in Stirone and Culbert, we conclude that to determine whether the Hobbs Act applies to these offenses we must examine the limits of the commerce power as articulated by the Supreme Court in Lopez and Morrison. 48