Opinion ID: 3040568
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Bulk Cash Smuggling Instruction

Text: The Tatoyans next argue that the district court’s jury instructions for the relatively new offense of bulk cash smuggling, see 31 U.S.C. § 5332 (2001), were in error because the instructions: (1) failed to expressly require a willful violation of the law; (2) failed to require a temporal connection between the act of concealing the currency and the requisite intent to violate the statute; and (3) improperly merged the bulk cash smuggling and failure to report offenses. The bulk cash smuggling statute, 31 U.S.C. § 5332(a)(1), reads as follows: Whoever, with the intent to evade a currency reporting requirement under section 5316, knowingly con- 6 United States v. Conners, 825 F.2d 1384 (9th Cir. 1987)—a currency reporting case in which motive evidence was properly admitted—is distinguishable. Conners involved two unrelated defendants who each claimed that the other one hid several bundles of money in a car door to evade the reporting requirement. Id. at 1390. The court, therefore, allowed the government to present evidence of one defendant’s cocaine activities because it was probative of that defendant’s identity as the money-hider. Id. The motive evidence proffered by the Tatoyans was not probative of the guilty party’s identity, nor was it probative of any other element of, or defense to, the currency reporting crimes. Therefore, Conners does not apply, and the court was free to exclude the proffered motive evidence. Exclusion of this evidence also does not violate due process under Chambers v. Mississippi, 410 U.S. 284, 302 (1973), because “[a] defendant has no [constitutional] right . . . to present irrelevant evidence.” Wood v. Alaska, 957 F.2d 1544, 1549 (9th Cir. 1992). 1132 UNITED STATES v. TATOYAN ceals more than $10,000 in currency or other monetary instruments on the person of such individual or in any conveyance, article of luggage, mer- chandise, or other container, and transports or transfers or attempts to transport or transfer such currency or monetary instruments from a place within the United States to a place outside of the United States, or from a place outside the United States to a place within the United States, shall be guilty of a currency smuggling offense and subject to punishment pursuant to subsection (b). “We review the district court’s formulation of jury instructions for an abuse of discretion,” United States v. Fernandez, 388 F.3d 1199, 1246 (9th Cir. 2004); however, “[w]hether the district court’s instructions adequately presented the defendant’s theory of the case” is reviewed de novo, United States v. Knapp, 120 F.3d 928, 930 (9th Cir. 1997). “In reviewing jury instructions, the relevant inquiry is whether the instructions as a whole are misleading or inadequate to guide the jury’s deliberation.” Fernandez, 388 F.3d at 1246. Although no Ninth Circuit Model Jury Instruction exists for this relatively new statute, the instructions given by the district court, which carefully tracked the language of § 5332(a), were not “misleading or inadequate” for any of the reasons the Tatoyans suggest.
[5] Because the bulk cash smuggling statute is codified under title 31, chapter 53, subchapter II of the United States Code, the Tatoyans argue that they can only be found guilty if they “willfully” violated the statute. See 31 U.S.C. § 5322 (prescribing criminal penalties for willfully violating any part of that subchapter). They contend that the jury instructions given—which recited § 5332(a) virtually verbatim, but did not import the “willfulness” requirement from § 5322(a)— failed to accurately capture this element of bulk cash smugUNITED STATES v. TATOYAN 1133 gling.7 We disagree, but hold that, in the absence of a jury determination that a willful violation of the bulk cash smuggling statute occurred, the criminal penalties authorized by § 5322—in particular, a fine of up to $250,000—are unavailable to the district court at sentencing for a violation of § 5332. See infra Part V. Section 5332(a) states: Whoever, with the intent to evade a currency reporting requirement under section 5316, knowingly conceals more than $10,000 in currency . . . and transports or transfers or attempts to transport or transfer such currency . . . from a place within the United States to a place outside of the United States . . . shall be guilty of a currency smuggling offense and subject to punishment pursuant to subsection (b). Subsection (b) then authorizes the court to impose a sentence of “not more than 5 years” for anyone “convicted of a currency smuggling offense under subsection (a).” § 5332(b). Because the court properly instructed the jury as to the elements of a currency smuggling offense under § 5332(a), and because this offense stands on its own and does not, itself, require “willfulness,” there was no error in the district court’s omission of a willfulness instruction on this count.8 7 The jury instructions on this count were as follows: First, the defendant knowingly concealed more than $10,000 in currency on his or her person in any conveyance, article of luggage, merchandise, or other container. Second, the defendant knowingly attempted to transport such currency from a place within the United States to a place outside the United States. Third, the defendant knew at the time of the alleged concealment he or she was required to file a report of the amount of money she was attempting to transport with the Secretary of Treasury. Fourth, the defendant intended to evade filing such a report. 8 As discussed in Part V, however, this omission does have an effect on the penalty that may be imposed on the Tatoyans for violating the bulk cash smuggling statute. 1134 UNITED STATES v. TATOYAN
[6] The Tatoyans next argue that the language of § 5332 requires that the defendant have the intent to evade the reporting requirement at the time the actual concealment of currency occurs. A more natural reading of the statute, however, suggests that the intent to evade the reporting requirement can arise at any time prior to (and including) the moment of attempted transport—in other words that, as the district court found, “[c]oncealment is simply one part of a continuous course of conduct, at any stage of which the requisite intent can be formed.” If Congress had intended the meaning the Tatoyans now urge, it would have made this intent clear—for example, by using the word “concealed” instead of “conceals” in the statute. Indeed, if the interpretation urged by the Tatoyans were correct, travelers first learning of the reporting requirement at the airport—as most people do via the airport placards and customs inspector warnings—could not be guilty of violating § 5332 because they would not have known about the reporting requirement at the time of initial concealment. Even more troubling, sophisticated smugglers could entirely evade the consequences of § 5332 by having one person pack the bags containing excessive currency and having another person ultimately transport—and fail to report—this currency. The former would have concealed the money without having the requisite intent, while the latter would have had the requisite intent, but would not have participated in the actual concealment, rendering neither guilty—under the Tatoyans’ theory— of bulk cash smuggling. Statutes should be read to avoid such absurd results. See Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 U.S. 564, 575 (1982).9 9 Even if the intent to evade the reporting requirements were required to arise at the time the money was first physically concealed, a rational jury would still have found the Tatoyans guilty, rendering any jury instruction error harmless. See Neder v. United States, 527 U.S. 1, 18 (1999). The Tatoyans had carefully hidden the exact amount of money they failed to report, while they had put the money they admitted to possessing in more ordinary locations. UNITED STATES v. TATOYAN 1135
The final contention with respect to the bulk cash smuggling jury instruction is that it improperly merged the bulk cash smuggling and failure to report offenses such that the jury may have believed that a guilty verdict for failure to report necessarily required a guilty verdict for bulk cash smuggling. [7] The statute itself—as well as the record—seem to belie this fear. The district court correctly instructed the jury that bulk cash smuggling requires that the defendant “knowingly concealed more than $10,000 in currency on his or her person.” § 5332(a) (emphasis added). Knowing concealment is not an element of the failure to report offense charged under §§ 5316(a)(1)(A) and 5322, however. Therefore, as a strictly textual matter, the two offenses, as they were described by the district court’s jury instructions, do not merge. See Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 304 (1932) (“[W]here the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only one, is whether each provision requires proof of a fact which the other does not.”). [8] The Tatoyans contend, however, that the additional “concealment” element does not cure the merger problem because every person at the airport the day the Tatoyans were confronted was concealing their currency—whether in a pocket, pouch, purse, bag, or wallet—and, therefore, anyone who failed to report their money in violation of § 5316 was also “smuggling” cash under § 5332. This may be true as a factual matter. However, as a logical matter, it is possible to be guilty of failure to report but innocent of bulk cash smuggling, and vice versa.10 Therefore, under Blockburger, the two 10 For example, a person who knowingly conceals $20,000 in his briefcase with the intent to evade the currency reporting requirements, but then “breaks down” at the airport and reports the full $20,000 on Form 4790, 1136 UNITED STATES v. TATOYAN offenses are distinct and the district court’s instructions adequately captured this distinction. 284 U.S. at 304. [9] Finally, to the extent that the two offenses appear to merge because virtually everyone guilty of one offense would also be guilty of the other offense, the Supreme Court has emphasized that: Where . . . a legislature specifically authorizes cumulative punishment under two statutes, regardless of whether those two statutes proscribe the “same” conduct under Blockburger, a court’s task of statutory construction is at an end and the prosecutor may seek and the trial court or jury may impose cumula- tive punishment under such statutes in a single trial. Missouri v. Hunter, 459 U.S. 359, 368-69 (1983). Here, Congress’s intent was clear: Section 5332 was expressly enacted because the previous “penalties for violations of the currency reporting requirements [were] insufficient to provide a deterrent to the laundering of criminal proceeds[; i]n particular, in cases where the only criminal violation under [previous] law [was] a reporting offense . . . .” Pub. L. No. 107-56, Title III, § 371(a)(6). Congress thus contemplated—and indeed welcomed—a scenario in which someone guilty of a reporting offense under § 5316 would also be guilty of a bulk cash smuggling offense under § 5332. Because the two offenses are distinct, there was no error in the district court’s jury instructions on the bulk cash smuggling counts.