Opinion ID: 743072
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Trupin's Appeal

Text: 10 Title 18, U.S.C. § 2315 provides that [w]hoever receives, possesses, conceals, stores, barters, sells, or disposes of any goods ... of the value of $5,000 or more ... which have crossed a State or United States boundary after being stolen, unlawfully converted, or taken, knowing the same to have been stolen, unlawfully converted, or taken ... has committed a felony. We start by noting that Appellant raises no challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence establishing that the Marc Chagall painting was stolen in or about April 1970 from Baltimore, Maryland, that in the summer of 1979 it was located on [Trupin's] boat which was docked at the 79th Street boat basin [in New York City], that, several months later, in the beginning of 1980 [Trupin] received the painting in Westport, Connecticut, and that [he] brought it back to New York. Appellant also raises no challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence that Le Petit Concert was worth more than $5,000 when it was received, that he was told that the painting was stolen when he received it, and thereafter acted in a manner that was consistent only with knowledge that it was stolen, and that he possessed it and sought to dispose of it in March of 1990.1. United States v. Lopez 11 Trupin's first challenge is brought under the principles enunciated in Lopez. Lopez, it will readily be recalled, held that the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, 18 U.S.C. § 922(q)(1)(A), which made it a federal offense to possess a firearm at a place that the possessor knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone, was unconstitutional because it exceeded Congress's authority to pass legislation under the Commerce Clause. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 551-65, 115 S.Ct. at 1626-32. We first address Trupin's argument that within the strict meaning of Lopez, § 2315 unconstitutionally exceeds Congress's authority, before turning to his second point that Congress did not make adequate findings of impact on interstate commerce when amending the act. 12 We start our analysis with the proposition long recognized and recalled in Lopez that there are three broad categories of activity that Congress may regulate under the Commerce Clause: 13 First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce. Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities. Finally, Congress' commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. 14 Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558-59, 115 S.Ct. at 1629-30 (citations omitted); see also Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 150, 91 S.Ct. 1357, 1359, 28 L.Ed.2d 686 (1971). We look, then, to see whether § 2315 appropriately falls under the first, second, or third of these areas, keeping in mind that Lopez invalidated a statute which analytically fell under the third category, yet failed to pass muster because its subject matter did not have a substantial relation to interstate commerce. 15 Trupin's argument is directed at the portions of § 2315 which prohibit possession of property that has crossed a State or United States boundary after being stolen.... These two provisions were added by amendment to § 2315 in 1986. Trupin acknowledges that the former statute was a constitutional exercise of Congress's power to regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce (the first of the three categories outlined in Lopez ). See id., 402 U.S. at 150, 91 S.Ct. at 1359 (including former § 2315 as an example of Congress's exercise of this first category of power). But Trupin asserts that the addition of possession as a crime, particularly in the light of the change of the jurisdictional language from moving as interstate commerce to crossed a State boundary, makes the new provision unconstitutional. He believes that possession of stolen goods that have crossed state lines cannot be reached as a regulation of the channels of interstate commerce. He also asserts that possession alone is not a valid exercise of Congress's power under the third Lopez category for substantially the same reason discussed in Lopez. 16 We disagree. We find the Government's position convincing: amended § 2315 does fall within the first of the three Lopez categories, i.e., it is a regulation of use of the channels of interstate commerce, and therefore differs from § 922(q), which fell under the third of those categories. However, even if we were to accept Trupin's view that, by adding possession to § 2315 in the 1986 amendment, Congress drew on its power under the third category enumerated in Lopez, we would nevertheless find this exercise of power unquestionably constitutional. 17 First, we look at the history of § 2315 to assess its legitimacy as an exercise of Congress's power to regulate the channels of interstate commerce. As mentioned above, § 2315 was amended on November 10, 1986, to include possession of stolen goods that have crossed state lines. Prior to the amendment, the statute did not outlaw possession but only receipt, concealment, storing, bartering, selling or disposing of stolen property, and also covered only such property which was moving as, or which [was] a part of, or which constitute[d] interstate or foreign commerce.... A close look at the history of the changes in the jurisdictional language of § 2315 shows that Trupin's argument, that the crossed State boundary language takes § 2315 out of the purview of the first of the three permissible categories of regulation, is not warranted. 18 Although the moving as interstate commerce requirement of the original statute was generally broadly construed, a number of courts intimated that, if an item once moving was found to have come to rest, subsequent attempts to receive, conceal, sell, or dispose of the property would not violate the statute's prohibitions. For example, the Fifth Circuit explained that the original thief might transfer property to another person in such circumstances that it could be considered to have left interstate commerce; the court further stated that a stolen object could remain in the destination state for such a length of time that there would be an indication that it had left interstate commerce. United States v. Tobin, 576 F.2d 687, 692-93 (5th Cir.1978). 2 See also, e.g., Lee v. United States, 363 F.2d 469, 475 (8th Cir.1966); Corey v. United States, 305 F.2d 232, 236-38 (9th Cir.1962); Pilgrim v. United States, 266 F.2d 486, 488 (5th Cir.1959). Cf. McElroy v. United States, 455 U.S. 642, 652-54, 102 S.Ct. 1332, 1338-39, 71 L.Ed.2d 522 (1982) (construing 18 U.S.C. § 2314 in light of commerce clause decisions before 1919). 19 To forestall this potentially problematic interpretation, the 1985 Congress amended a companion statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2313, the Motor Vehicle Theft Law Enforcement Act, to replace the requirement that a stolen motor vehicle be in interstate commerce with the requirement that it have crossed a state boundary. On June 4, 1985, Senator Thurmond introduced an Act amending § 2315 to track the language of this sister statute, and called the Act a package of technical and minor changes to the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. 131 Cong. Rec. 14166 (1985). The amendment to § 2315 was described as eliminat[ing] the present requirement that the property still be considered as moving in interstate or foreign commerce at the time the defendant receives, conceals, or disposes of it, a requirement which, according to Thurmond, was unnecessarily burdensome and ... unrelated to the blameworthiness of the defendant's conduct. 131 Cong. Rec. 14184 (1985). Thus, the amendment was intended to technically correct the potential loophole created by the language moving in interstate commerce by changing the moving reference to the crossing language. See H.R.Rep. No. 99-797 (1985), quoted in part in 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6138-57 (H.R. 5241... makes technical and minor changes in ... provisions of titles 18 and 28 of the United States Code. All of the amendments contained in the bill are uncontroversial. Id. at 6139.) 20 Ironically, however, in the 1986 Congress's considerable zeal to make this technical correction via enactment of the Criminal Law and Procedure Technical Amendments Act of 1986, Pub.L. No. 99-646, § 76, 100 Stat. 3618 (Nov. 10, 1986), it enacted a syntactical horror. The enactment caused a second paragraph of § 2315 to read whoever receives, conceals, stores, barters, sells, or disposes of any falsely made, forged, altered or counterfeited securities or tax stamps ... which have crossed a State or United States boundary after being stolen, unlawfully converted or taken, knowing the same to have been so falsely made, forged, altered, or counterfeited. This jumbled jargon was corrected in 1988 by another technical amendment, enacted as a rider to the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, Pub.L. No. 100-690, § 7048, 102 Stat. 4401 (Nov. 18, 1988), which reconverted the language of the second paragraph to read as before the 1986 amendments. 21 In the light of this history, we think it improper to attribute much, if any, significance to the difference between the language in the second paragraph and the other paragraphs of § 2315, particularly the first, with which we are here concerned. That the second paragraph was returned to its original language is meaningless, since grammar, not policy, motivated the change. We do not agree with Trupin that the change broadened the scope of § 2315, but think the new language made the provision more specific. The new law might reach some conduct that was beyond the scope of the old law, e.g., stolen goods that have come to rest in their destination state. Yet, it also might be construed to exclude some conduct that the old law covered, i.e., wholly intrastate movement of stolen goods that is nonetheless part of commerce. Because the new crossed language did not greatly expand the scope of the former § 2315, which is concededly constitutional, but rather clarified exactly what conduct Congress intended to reach, the change did not make the new version of the law unconstitutional. With regard to this statute, therefore, the statutory reference to movement across state boundaries is indistinguishable, for the purpose of constitutional analysis, from a reference to movement in interstate commerce. 22 Having so held, we do not agree with Trupin that the amendment adding pure possession to the litany of § 2315 offenses takes the statute out of the use of the channels of interstate commerce. Cases such as United States v. Beuckelaere, 91 F.3d 781 (6th Cir.1996) (upholding 18 U.S.C. 922(o), punishing machine gun possession), and United States v. Rambo, 74 F.3d 948-52 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 72, 136 L.Ed.2d 32 (1996) (same), have upheld, as first-category regulation, statutes which prohibit possession alone, and which, unlike § 2315, contain absolutely no reference to either crossing of state lines or movement in interstate commerce. See Beuckelaere, 91 F.3d at 783 (Section 922(o) is 'a regulation of the use of the channels of interstate commerce' because it is 'an attempt to prohibit the interstate transportation of a commodity through the channels of commerce.'  (quoting Lopez, 514 U.S. at 559, 115 S.Ct. at 1630)). Likewise, and in conjunction with a statutory element of movement across state boundaries, possession alone can certainly be sustained as a legitimate exercise of Congressional power to regulate the uses and channels of interstate commerce. 23 For these reasons, we believe that § 2315, as amended, is a legitimate exercise of Congress's power to regulate the channels of interstate commerce. 24 We next evaluate how amended § 2315 differs from the statute evaluated in Lopez even if viewed as a category three exercise of the commerce power. Trupin's belief is that the provision of § 2315 which criminalizes possession of stolen goods that have crossed state lines goes too far in that it reaches beyond the regulation of interstate commerce to an act that could easily occur entirely within a single state. A reading of Lopez, however, shows that § 2315 and § 922(q) are entirely dissimilar with regard to the connection of their regulated subject matter with interstate commerce. Section 922(q) did not implicate commerce, or activity of a commercial nature. Justice Rehnquist's majority opinion stated that [s]ection 922(q) is a criminal statute that by its terms has nothing to do with 'commerce' or any sort of economic enterprise, however broadly one might define those terms. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 561, 115 S.Ct. at 1630-31. By contrast, § 2315 does concern commerce in that it seeks to eradicate the interstate and international traffic in stolen goods and in doing so to protect and encourage legitimate trade. 25 When § 2315 was originally passed, Congress had evidence that thieves were using interstate commerce to transport stolen goods and that the possession of goods that had crossed state lines after having been stolen could not be effectively prosecuted by local authorities who did not have access to the original complainant or national subpoena power, much less a strong interest in prosecuting a local recipient of property stolen in another jurisdiction. See Sending and Receipt of Stolen Property in Interstate and Foreign Commerce: Hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives on H.R. 10287, 70th Cong. 6-7, 36, 38, 42 (Apr. 3 and 4, 1928); Jerome Hall, Federal Anti-Theft Legislation, 1 Law & Contemp. Probs. 425, 428-34 (1934); cf. Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207, 218-19, 105 S.Ct. 3127, 3134, 87 L.Ed.2d 152 (1985) (discussing § 2314). Thus, the statute in both its first paragraph (dealing with receiving, concealing, storing, bartering, selling, or disposing of goods, wares, merchandise, securities, or money), and second paragraph (dealing with falsely made, forged, altered, or counterfeited securities or tax stamps) used as its commerce-nexus language the words moving as, or which are a part of, or which constitute interstate or foreign commerce.... In short, there is substantial evidence that Congress was concerned about a serious problem of illegal, interstate trade when it first enacted § 2315. The 1986 modifications to the statute regarding possession are consonant with these concerns, and thus likewise reflect Congress's legitimate power to impact interstate commerce, for the same reasons mentioned above in our discussion of category-one regulation. 26 As the Lopez majority opinion itself recognized, Congress may reach intrastate acts as part of an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity, in which the regulatory scheme could be undercut unless the intrastate activity were regulated. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 561, 115 S.Ct. at 1631. This principle has been applied to uphold criminal statutes. See, e.g., Perez, 402 U.S. 146, 91 S.Ct. 1357, 28 L.Ed.2d 686 (upholding Congress's power to criminalize even entirely local manifestations of loan sharking). Amended § 2315 is a similar law: In seeking to eradicate a problem with an obvious and substantial interstate component, it reaches acts that in some instances might occur in a single locale. Lopez does not prevent this, at least when commerce is clearly implicated. 27 In sum, therefore, although we find Trupin's Lopez arguments to be sophisticated and creative, we are yet again led to agree with the Seventh Circuit's sentiment that [i]t appears that United States v. Lopez has raised many false hopes. Defendants have used it as a basis for challenges to various statutes. Almost invariably those challenges fail. United States v. Bell, 70 F.3d 495, 497 (7th Cir.1995) (citations omitted). 3 2. Ex Post Facto/Fifth Amendment 28 We reject Trupin's argument that § 2315 as amended in 1986 was applied to him in violation of the ex post facto clause and the Fifth Amendment. Rather, as the district court found, Trupin was prosecuted for the portion of his continuing offense that occurred after the date of the amendment of the statute. His prosecution is hence not barred by the ex post facto clause. In Samuels v. McCurdy, 267 U.S. 188, 45 S.Ct. 264, 69 L.Ed. 568 (1925), the Supreme Court held that the Georgia prohibition statutes making it illegal to control or possess liquor could properly be applied to a defendant who had lawfully acquired the liquor before the effective date of the statute, and continued the possession for several years after the change in the law. The court reasoned that [t]he penalty [the statute] imposes is for continuing to possess the liquor after the enactment of the law. Id. at 193, 45 S.Ct. at 265 (citing Chicago & Alton R.R. Co. v. Tranbarger, 238 U.S. 67, 35 S.Ct. 678, 59 L.Ed. 1204 (1915)) (statutes imposing criminal penalties for continuing conduct will be construed to allow a reasonable grace period for compliance so as to avoid ex post facto concerns). Similarly, here, the offense charged was for continuing to possess the stolen painting after the 1986 amendment. Much more recently, we held in United States v. Harris, 79 F.3d 223, 230 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 142, 136 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996), that the ex post facto clause was not violated by the continuing financial crimes enterprise statute, 18 U.S.C. § 225. Judge Miner's opinion in Harris reached this holding, in reliance upon ample Second Circuit precedent, because the jury must have considered post-enactment conduct in reaching its verdict. See id. at 229 (citing United States v. Torres, 901 F.2d 205, 226 (2d Cir.1990); United States v. Duncan, 42 F.3d 97, 104 (2d Cir.1994)). See also United States v. Borelli, 336 F.2d 376, 386 n. 5 (2d Cir.1964) (Friendly, J.). 29 As we have said, the relevant conduct in this case was not the receipt of the painting which Trupin took from Westport, Connecticut, to New York in 1980, but the continued possession of it after the 1986 amendment. Trupin could have avoided conviction for possession by ceasing his possession within a reasonable time after the 1986 amendment. See Chicago & Alton, 238 U.S. at 74, 35 S.Ct. at 680-81; see also 1 Wayne R. LaFave & Austin W. Scott, Jr., Substantive Criminal Law, § 2.4(b), at 142 & n.53 (1986). 4 He could have returned the painting to its owners anonymously or through his attorney, or delivered it to a legitimate custodian of lost and stolen art. His failure to take any such remedial steps after the change in the federal law subjects him to conviction without implicating the ex post facto clause. See United States v. Alkins, 925 F.2d 541, 549 (2d Cir.1991) (amendment to mail fraud statute was not applied to defendants in violation of ex post facto clause where defendants could have taken steps to prevent the final element of the crime from occurring after the effective date of the statute). 30 Trupin responds that returning the painting after the 1986 amendment would attest to his illegal possession in the interim, thereby implicating his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Trupin, however, is not in the same situation as that faced by the defendants in United States v. Kuh, 541 F.2d 672 (7th Cir.1976), or United States v. King, 402 F.2d 694 (9th Cir.1968). In those cases, the relevant statute contained a provision criminalizing the failure to inform authorities of criminal conduct. The Seventh and Ninth Circuits both held that such a provision violated those defendants' Fifth Amendment rights by forcing them to report information which could incriminate them. But Trupin had options, as just listed above, which would have enabled him to cease his possession of stolen goods within a reasonable time after such possession was criminalized without subjecting him to further criminal proceedings. The Kuh and King defendants had no such options available to avoid self-incrimination. Trupin's conviction thus violates neither the Fifth Amendment nor the ex post facto clause. 3. Jury Instructions 31 Trupin also argues that the district court's jury instructions were erroneous in two respects: First, the court should have required the jury to find that Trupin's interstate transportation of the painting had a commercial impact on interstate commerce; second, the instructions erroneously stated that the jury could find him guilty if he either possessed, stored or concealed the painting, or sold, bartered or disposed of it. Objection to the instruction as to commercial impact or commercial purpose was not preserved by trial counsel either at trial or in post-trial motions and, indeed, was a charge rejected in Sirois, 87 F.3d at 39-40. 32 The second objection is more complicated. The court initially proposed an instruction, taken from the standard jury instructions contained in L. Sand, J. Siffert, W. Laughlin, and S. Reiss, Modern Federal Jury Instructions (1995), which included reference to the receipt of stolen goods. Trupin's counsel objected to that instruction. Following an out-of-court discussion between Trupin's counsel and the prosecutor, Trupin's counsel did not object to a revised instruction which deleted the verb received. The resulting instruction read as follows: [Y]ou may not find the defendant guilty unless you agree, unanimously, that the defendant possessed, concealed or stored the property or that the defendant bartered, sold, or disposed of the property. It is not enough that some of you find only that the defendant possessed or stored the property and the rest of you find only that the defendant disposed of or sold the property. Arguably, therefore, Trupin has waived his right to appeal that instruction. Later, however, Trupin raised the contention that the court's instruction violated his right to a unanimous verdict. 33 While we believe that Trupin waived his appeal on this point, we need not decide whether his apparent acquiescence to the instruction as given constituted waiver, because we find no error in the instruction as given. We have, time and again, held that a general charge regarding unanimity is ordinarily sufficient to protect the defendant's right to a unanimous verdict. United States v. Harris, 8 F.3d 943, 945 (2d Cir.1993); United States v. Natelli, 527 F.2d 311, 324-25 (2d Cir.1975). Compare United States v. Gipson, 553 F.2d 453, 458-59 (5th Cir.1977) (describing § 2313 as referring to six acts in two distinct conceptual groupings--receiving, concealing and storing on the one hand--bartering, selling and disposing on the other--which could permit the jury to find the actus reus element unanimously despite difference in belief as to which intra group act the defendants committed, but reversing conviction where trial judge gave instruction that permitted jury to find actus reus element unanimously despite difference in belief that inter group acts occurred), cited approvingly in United States v. Peterson, 768 F.2d 64, 67 n. 2 (2d Cir.1985). 34 Thus, we affirm the defendant's conviction.