Opinion ID: 2996731
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: uses fire or an explosive to commit any felony

Text: which may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, . . . including a felony which provides for an enhanced punishment if committed by the use of a deadly or dangerous weapon or device shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such felony, be sentenced to imprisonment for 10 years. . . . Notwithstanding any other provision of law, . . . the term of imprisonment imposed under this subsection [shall not] run concurrently with any other term of imprisonment including that im- posed for the felony in which the explosive was used or carried. 18 U.S.C. § 844(h)(1) (emphasis added). In two earlier cases considering the application of § 844(h)(1) in the context of cross burnings, United States v. Hartbarger, 148 F.3d 777 (7th Cir. 1998), and United States v. Hayward, 6 F.3d 1241 (7th Cir. 1993), we concluded that the “any felony” language in the opening clause of the statute by itself expressed Congress’ intent to reach fire-related felonies, and therefore affirmed the convictions under § 844(h)(1) based on the No. 00-3400 5 defendants’ conviction for conspiracy to interfere with federal housing rights under 18 U.S.C. § 241. See Hartbarger, 148 F.3d at 785; Hayward, 6 F.3d at 1246-47. Other courts have arrived at similar results, relying on § 844(h)(1)’s specification that the punishment is “in addition to the punishment provided for” the underlying felony and the direction that the punishment be imposed consecutively with “any other term of imprisonment.” See United States v. Riggio, 70 F.3d 336, 339 (5th Cir. 1995); United States v. Stewart, 65 F.3d 918, 928 (11th Cir. 1995); United States v. Ramey, 24 F.3d 602, 610 (4th Cir. 1994); cf. Blacharski v. United States, 215 F.3d 792, 794 (7th Cir. 2000) (examining § 844(h)(1) as applied to the use of explosives). Because Hartbarger and Hayward relied on the § 241 conspiracy charges as the predicate felony, they do not directly answer the question of the appropriateness of the application of § 844(h)(1) to § 3631, see Hartbarger, 148 F.3d at 786 n.8, which, unlike § 241, specifies greater punishment if fire is used: Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, by force or threat of force willfully injures, intimidates or interferes with, or attempts to injure, intimidate or interfere with—
and because he is or has been selling, pur- chasing, renting, financing, occupying, or contracting or negotiating for the sale, purchase, rental, financing or occupation of any dwelling . . . shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or 6 No. 00-3400 fire shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. . . . 42 U.S.C. § 3631 (emphasis added). Colvin argues that when the underlying offense already contains an enhanced punishment for the use of fire, the Supreme Court’s decision in Busic v. United States, 446 U.S. 398 (1980), controls. In Busic, the Court, interpreting an earlier version of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) (which imposed a mandatory consecutive punishment for using a firearm to commit a felony), held that language such as “any felony,” “shall [be] in addition to,” and “shall not run concurrently” did not sufficiently express Congress’ intent so as to override the ordinary presumption that Congress did not enact two statutes proscribing the same offense. Busic, 446 U.S. at 405; see also Simpson v. United States, 435 U.S. 6, 12-13 (1978). The Court reasoned that these phrases did not make clear how Congress “intended to mesh the new enhancement scheme with analogous provisions in pre-existing statutes defining federal crimes.” Busic, 446 U.S. at 405. After the Supreme Court’s decision in Busic, Congress amended § 924(c) to ensure that the enhancement is available even when the underlying felony already provides for enhanced punishment, specifying that the predicate offense includes those that “ ‘provide[] for an enhanced punishment if committed by the use of a deadly or dangerous weapon or device.’ ” See United States v. Gonzales, 520 U.S. 1, 10-11 (1997) (quoting Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, Pub. L. No. 98-473, § 1005(a), 98 Stat. 2138-2139). After the statute was amended, when the Court returned to the question of Congress’ intent in Gonzales, it saw less ambiguity in the sort of language that it had found wanting in Busic. See id. at 10. In Gonzales, the Court rejected the defendant’s assertion that § 924(c)’s requirement that the sentence run consecutively to “any other term of imprisonNo. 00-3400 7 ment” should be read to apply only to federal, and not state, prison terms, noting that the statute “speaks of ‘any term of imprisonment’ without limitation.” Id. at 9. Although Gonzales did not involve a challenge under double-jeopardy principles, the Court concluded that, with respect to the double-enhancement issue in Busic, the 1984 amendment eliminated any ambiguities about Congress’ intent: “Congress made clear its desire to run § 924(c) enhancements consecutively to all other prison terms, regardless of whether they were imposed under firearms enhancement statutes similar to 924(c).” Id. at 10; see also Hanford, 39 F.3d at 734-35. And even though the amended language did not specify that state terms were not excluded, it reinforced the Court’s conclusion that the breadth of the language left no room to speculate about any such intended exception. Gonzales, 520 U.S. at 10-11. We believe that the language added by a 1988 amend- ment to § 844(h)(1), like the 1984 amendment to § 924(c) considered in Gonzales, eliminates any doubt about whether Congress intended to impose cumulative punishment when applied to statutes containing an enhanced punishment for the use of fire. The 1988 amendment to § 844(h)(1) inserted, after “any felony,” the same language Congress used when it amended § 924(c) to overcome the result in Busic: “including a felony which provides for an enhanced punishment if committed by the use of a deadly or dangerous weapon or device . . . .” Anti-Drug Abuse Amendments Act of 1988, Pub. L. No. 100-690, Title VI, § 6474(b), 102 Stat. 4379, 4380; compare Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, Pub. L. No. 98-473, Title II, § 1005(a) (amending § 924(c)) (“including a crime of violence which provides for an enhanced punishment if committed by the use of a deadly or dangerous weapon or device”). Colvin finds it significant that this new language specifies the application of § 844(h)(1) to offenses that carry an 8 No. 00-3400 enhancement for the use of “a deadly or dangerous weapon or device,” but does not mention the use of fire. As a matter of statutory construction, however, “including” usually signals illustration, not exhaustion. See, e.g., Coleman v. United States, 318 F.3d 754, 760 (7th Cir. 2003); Hernandez-Mancilla v. I.N.S., 246 F.3d 1002, 1008 (7th Cir. 2001); Richardson v. Nat’l City Bank of Evansville, 141 F.3d 1228, 1232 (7th Cir. 1998). Furthermore, we think fire, under the most straightforward reading of the statute, is encompassed within the phrase “deadly or dangerous weapon or device.” As the Tenth Circuit observed, the new clause also omits any mention of explosives, see United States v. Grassie, 237 F.3d 1199, 1214 (10th Cir. 2001), and because Congress switched to different language in this clause, we cannot infer that its failure to repeat the word “fire” is any more significant than its failure to repeat the word “explosive.” Instead, we agree with the Tenth Circuit that the structure of the statute suggests that Congress intended to treat fires and explosives as interchangeable: By pairing fire with explosives in § 844(h)(1), Congress clearly placed these weapons in parity, and signaled its view that the commission of fel- onies by these means constitutes the use of a deadly or dangerous weapon or device. . . . It is irrational to view § 844(h)(1) as first explicitly linking fire and explosives for additional punishment when used in committing any felony then, sub silentio, delinking fire from that pairing for purposes of the cumula- tive punishment clause which refers expansively to deadly or dangerous weapons or devices. Id. at 1215. And the circumstances of the amendment— adding the same language that was added to § 924(c) in response to Busic—suggest that Congress intended, not to draw a distinction between fire and explosives, but to overcome the Court’s uncertainty about the intended appliNo. 00-3400 9 cation of enhanced punishment to offenses already containing similar enhancements. Colvin asserts that the Tenth Circuit’s opinion in Grassie is distinguishable because in that case, fire was used to destroy a building, and in this case, it was used for “symbolic” purposes. It makes sense, according to Colvin, for Congress to limit the use of cumulative punishment under § 844(h)(1) to the most “serious” cases, which Colvin asserts is those cases in which fire was intended to be used, and in fact was used, as a weapon. Colvin’s effort to distinguish Grassie does not stand up to scrutiny. Fire was used in Grassie as a weapon of destruction and in this case as a weapon of intimidation, and there is nothing in § 844(h)(1) that suggests that an intent to cause physical harm is at all relevant. Furthermore, “deadly” and “dangerous” ordinarily refer not to the actual harm that results, but to the potential or risk of serious harm. An instrumentality may be dangerous even though, in a particular case, serious harm was not intended and was in fact avoided. As with explosives, the fact that the fire used to commit the felony did not cause physical harm, and was not intended to, does not negate the potential for harm suggested by the phrase “deadly or dangerous weapon or device.”1 As Colvin points out, however, § 3631 is a felony only if fire, explosives, or a dangerous weapon is used (or if there 1 As we explained in Hayward, the incidental use of fire does not fall within § 844(h)(1)’s ambit. See 6 F.3d at 1246. So the thief who uses a cigarette lighter to illuminate a keyhole does not use fire to commit the burglary but merely to facilitate its commission. Id. By contrast, a defrauder who sets fire to his business to collect insurance proceeds uses fire to commit his crime. See United States v. Ruiz, 105 F.3d 1492, 1503-04 (1st Cir. 1997), cited with approval in United States v. Zendeli, 180 F.3d 879, 885 (7th Cir. 1999). 10 No. 00-3400 are other specified aggravating circumstances not relevant here). This raises the question whether the reference to “any felony” in the opening sentence of § 844(h)(1) requires that the predicate offense be a felony without regard to the conduct signaled out for additional punishment. If so, then § 844(h)(1) would not apply to § 3631 because, without the use of fire (or a dangerous weapon or explosives), the underlying offense is a misdemeanor. This reading, however, is inconsistent with the result in Grassie, which, like this case, involved the application of § 844(h)(1) to a statute that describes both a misdemeanor and, if fire, dangerous weapons, or explosives are used, a felony. See Grassie, 237 F.3d at 1213; 18 U.S.C. § 247(d)(3) & (4). Furthermore, § 3631, we think, describes separate offenses, and not one offense with varying punishments, cf. Castillo v. United States, 530 U.S. 120 (2000); Jones v. United States, 526 U.S. 227 (1999), and that is how it was understood at trial.2 The offense that Colvin was convicted of was the aggravated, felony offense, and that is the offense to which “any felony” in the opening sentence of § 844(h)(1) refers. Even though this felony punishes the use of fire, the 1988 amendment to § 844(h)(1) makes clear that Congress intended separate punishment under § 844(h)(1). Cf. Gonzales, 520 U.S. at 11. Any narrower reading of the language of § 844(h)(1) would be difficult to reconcile with the Supreme Court’s expansive reading in Gonzales of similar language in § 924(c) and its holding that the 1984 amendment to that statute foreclosed any argument about intended exceptions. See id.3 2 The jury was instructed that in order to convict Colvin on the § 3631 charges, it had to find that his “conduct involved the use or attempted use of fire.” 3 Because we believe the statute is clear, we have no occasion to apply the “same elements” rule of construction set forth in (continued...) No. 00-3400 11 The punishment for the use of fire in § 844(h)(1), when applied in conjunction with a felony already punishing the use of fire, is severe, but we see no adequate reason to conclude that Congress intended that fire be treated differently for purposes of § 844(h)(1) than explosives or other dangerous weapons. Like § 924(c), § 844(h)(1) was designed to discourage offenders from choosing particularly dangerous means of accomplishing their objectives, and Congress has made clear that those who do are subject to punishment under § 844(h)(1) in addition to any enhanced punishment imposed for the underlying felony. We therefore reject Colvin’s arguments that the prosecution and punishment under § 3631 and § 844(h)(1) violate the Double Jeopardy Clause.