Opinion ID: 3017097
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Calvary Baptist Church

Text: The Calvary Baptist Church building contained a sanctuary used for religious purposes and a small school. “A 21 church, like the owner-occupied residence considered in Jones, generally does not function in a manner that places it in any significant relationship with commerce, let alone interstate commerce. A church’s primary function is essentially noncommercial and non-economic.” United States v. Lamont, 330 F.3d 1249, 1254 (9th Cir. 2003); see also Rea, 300 F.3d at 960 (“The fact that a building is a church, without more, however, does not bring it within the ambit of section 844(i).”); United States v. Carr, 271 F.3d 172, 179 (4th Cir. 2001) (“[U]se of a building as a church does not alone qualify it as being ‘used in’ interstate commerce.”). In short, a normal church is no more “active[ly] used for commercial purposes” than was the residential home in Jones. It is true, as the Government insists, that churches can engage in commercial functions. See Lamont, 330 F.3d at 1255 (describing “megachurches” that offer banking, shopping, barbershop, and fitness center services and suggesting that these functions may be sufficiently unrelated to religious worship to warrant the inclusion of such churches within the scope of § 844(i)). The record regarding the Calvary Baptist Church building, however, indicates that it was not being “actively used for commercial purposes.” At Davies’s actual innocence hearing, the Government introduced the following evidence in an attempt to show that the Calvary Baptist Church building was “used in [an] activity affecting interstate . . . commerce” under § 844(i): (1) the church building contained a small school that was not shown to be selling its educational services. Its 75 students, after graduation, attended out-of-state universities, some of whom 22 received donations from the church; (2) the school purchased textbooks, desks, chairs, sports equipment, trophies, school bus engines, and school bus tires from out-of-state; (3) the church raised $24,000 per year from 1989 to 1998 (the year of the arson) to support the building of an out-of-state church in Wisconsin; (4) in 1998, the church made $12,000 in donations to ten missions, nine of which are in foreign countries and one of which is in California.9 9 Although we operate under the “actual innocence” gateway whereby the Government may “present any admissible evidence of petitioner’s guilt even if that evidence was not presented during petitioner’s plea colloquy,” Bousley, 523 U.S. at 624 (emphasis added), the Supreme Court has limited the Government to introducing only evidence proving that the petitioner is guilty of the crime charged in the indictment. In Bousley, the Government “maintain[ed] that [Bousley] must demonstrate that he is actually innocent of both ‘using’ and ‘carrying’ a firearm,” both of which the relevant statute there, 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1), made a crime. Bousley, 523 U.S. at 624. The Supreme Court noted, however, that petitioner’s indictment charged him only with ‘using’ firearms in violation of § 924(c)(1). And there is no record evidence that the Government elected not to charge petitioner with ‘carrying’ a 23 We find the Government’s first argument foreclosed by United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995). In Lopez, the appellant had been indicted for violating the Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1990 by possessing a firearm in what he knew to be a school zone. He moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground that the Commerce Clause did not confer upon Congress the power “to legislate control over . . . public schools.” Id. at 551. The District Court denied the motion, concluding that the statute was an “exercise of Congress’ well-defined power to regulate activities in and affecting commerce, and the ‘business’ of elementary, middle and high schools . . . affects interstate commerce.” Id. at 551-52. In support of this position, the Government argued as follows: firearm in exchange for his plea of guilty. Accordingly, petitioner need demonstrate no more than that he did not ‘use’ a firearm as that term is defined in Bailey. Id. Although the statute here includes both interstate and foreign commerce within its reach, Davies need only show that the building he destroyed was not used in interstate commerce, as charged by his indictment. The church’s donations to missions in foreign countries, are, of course, not probative of its connection to interstate commerce. Accordingly, the Government’s evidence suggesting that the church raised donations in 1998 sent to nine foreign missions is irrelevant to whether Davies destroyed a building used in interstate commerce, although the evidence indicating that funds were raised for a California mission remains relevant. 24 [T]he presence of guns in schools poses a substantial threat to the educational process by threatening the learning environment. A handicapped educational process, in turn, will result in a less productive citizenry. That, in turn, would have an adverse effect on the Nation’s economic well-being. As a result, the Government argues that Congress could rationally have concluded that [18 U.S.C.] § 922(q) substantially affects interstate commerce. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 564. The Supreme Court rejected this argument, holding that a public school does not engage in an activity that has sufficient effects on interstate commerce to bring the statute within Congress’s power to regulate commerce. In the course of reaching this conclusion, the Court observed that the statute “by its terms has nothing to do with ‘commerce’ or any sort of economic enterprise, however broadly one might define those terms.” Id. at 561. It took issue with the dissent’s position that “Congress . . . could rationally conclude that schools fall on the commercial side of the line,” noting that this view “lacks any real limits” and would give Congress the authority “to regulate each and every aspect of local schools.” Id. at 566. In Lopez, the Supreme Court was interpreting the Commerce Clause rather than § 844(i). Nevertheless, Lopez convinces us that the Court does not view a public school as actively engaged in commerce and we are constrained to interpret § 844(i) to avoid the constitutional issues that would otherwise arise under Lopez. Because we cannot distinguish the 25 public school in Lopez from the school operated in the Calvary Baptist Church, we cannot conclude that the latter’s building was actively employed for commercial purposes as a result of its use as a school. The Government’s added twist here, that some students eventually went off to out-of-state colleges, would not distinguish the school within the Calvary Baptist Church building from most any school. Additionally, the fact that the school here may have given donations to other out-of-state schools does not convert the non-commercial role of the church school (or the out-of-state schools) into a commercial one. The fact that this local school purchased goods (such as textbooks, desks, and chairs) from the national economy incident to running a local school surely is also not enough to bring its building within the ambit of § 844(i). As the Supreme Court observed in Jones, “[p]ractically every building in our cities, towns, and rural areas is constructed with supplies that have moved in interstate commerce, served by utilities that have an interstate connection, financed or insured by enterprises that do business across state lines, or bears some other trace of interstate commerce.” Jones, 529 U.S. at 857. The owners of the private home at issue in Jones also undoubtedly purchased furniture and equipment that moved in interstate commerce, and the public high school at issue in Lopez also purchased similar school supplies that moved in interstate commerce. Thus, the fact that the church school, a non-commercial entity, purchased goods that have moved in interstate commerce is not enough to bring its destruction within § 844(i), lest every other local school in our nation be subject to § 844(i). These types of “connections” to interstate commerce 26 constitute the type of attenuated contacts with interstate commerce that this particular church and most other churches in modern society have, and that are insufficient to bring a religious entity within the statutory definition. Jones emphasized that, in reviewing the application of § 844(i) to a particular arson, we must look for “active employment for commercial purposes, and not merely a passive, passing, or past connection to commerce.” Lamont, 330 F.3d at 1256 (quoting Jones, 529 U.S. at 855). The purchase of goods for use in conducting the activities of a local school is hardly “active employment for commercial purposes.” With respect to the fact that the church building was used to send funds to a Wisconsin congregation, “[t]hat the church may receive from or transmit funds to a national or religious entity with which it is affiliated does not mean that its activity has changed from non-commercial to commercial.” Lamont, 330 F.3d at 1256. The fact that the church building here was used to send funds to another non-commercial religious organization in Wisconsin does not somehow mean that both churches were engaged in interstate commercial activity, or an activity affecting interstate commerce. Under the Government’s view, hardly a single church would escape being a “national” one subject to § 844(i) because the raising of contributions ultimately sent to support out-of-state religious work would somehow affect interstate “commerce.” We are thus left with the fact that the Calvary Baptist Church raised some portion of $12,000 for a mission in California. The record does not detail what sorts of activities 27 the California mission undertook. We are mindful, of course, that we operate under the actual innocence gateway, whereby, “[t]o establish actual innocence, [Davies] must demonstrate that, ‘in light of all the evidence,’ ‘it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have convicted him.’” Bousley, 523 U.S. at 623 (quoting Schlup, 513 U.S. at 327-328) (internal quotation marks omitted). But the juror of which this speaks is a juror instructed that there can be no convictions unless he or she is persuaded of each element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. The raising of some portion of $12,000 within the Calvary Baptist Church building sometime in 1998 for an out-of-state mission whose activities are not known is simply not enough to support a finding of “active employment for commercial purposes,” Jones, 529 U.S. at 855. Thus, the Government has failed to provide any basis under which a reasonable juror could determine that the Calvary Baptist Church building in 1998 was used in an activity affecting interstate commerce, and Davies has demonstrated that he is actually innocent of a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 844(i).10 10 Several circuit courts have reached the same conclusion with respect to church buildings with similarly passive connections to interstate commerce. See, e.g., Lamont, 330 F.3d at 1256-57 (§ 844(i) did not apply where church purchased gas, insurance, and supplies from out of state, and several churchgoers resided out of state); Rea, 300 F.3d at 962 (purchase of supplies for church annex, along with after-school tutoring program and Sunday school having been conducted in the annex, were insufficient to bring church annex within scope of § 844(i)); Odom, 252 F.3d 1289 at 1296-97 (receiving 28