Opinion ID: 488843
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Proper Procedure to Challenge Jurisdiction

Text: 15 Appellants argue that the district court erred in reserving decision on Appellants' motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and ruling that the jurisdictional issue should go to the jury. They assert that the jurisdictional issue was a matter of law that should have been decided by the trial court on the pretrial motion to dismiss. We find that the district court was correct in its determination that Appellants' subject matter jurisdiction challenge was not appropriate for determination by the court on a pretrial motion to dismiss. 16 Fed.R.Crim.P. 12(b) provides that [a]ny defense, objection, or request which is capable of determination without the trial of the general issue may be raised before trial by motion. Questions of subject matter jurisdiction may be raised under Rule 12(b), but also may be raised at any time during the pendency of the proceedings. Rule 12(b)(2); C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure (Criminal) Sec. 193, at 693-94 (2d ed. 1982). As the language of the rule indicates, when the issue raised involves a question that may not be determined without trial of the general issue it is not proper for decision by pretrial motion. The general issue has been defined as evidence relevant to the question of guilt or innocence. United States v. Barletta, 644 F.2d 50, 58 (1st Cir.1981). 17 It follows that a pretrial motion to dismiss the indictment cannot be based on a sufficiency of the evidence argument because such an argument raises factual questions embraced in the general issue. United States v. Mann, 517 F.2d 259, 267 (5th Cir.1975), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1087, 96 S.Ct. 878, 47 L.Ed.2d 97 (1976); United States v. King, 581 F.2d 800, 802 (10th Cir.1978). Rule 12 is not intended to authorize speaking motions through which the truth of the allegations in an indictment are challenged. United States v. Greater Syracuse Bd. of Realtors, Inc., 449 F.Supp. 887, 899 (N.D.N.Y.1978) (challenge to sufficiency of allegations of effect on interstate commerce in criminal antitrust case); C. Wright, supra, Sec. 194, at 714. Thus, when a question of federal subject matter jurisdiction is intermeshed with questions going to the merits, the issue should be determined at trial. Greater Syracuse, 449 F.Supp. at 899. This is clearly the case when the jurisdictional requirement is also a substantive element of the offense charged. See id. 18 Section 955a(a) makes the jurisdictional element one of the material elements of the crime of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute on the high seas. United States v. Julio-Diaz, 678 F.2d 1031, 1032-33 (11th Cir.1982) (addressing alternative jurisdictional base that vessel is a United States vessel); see 21 U.S.C.A. Sec. 955a(a). Therefore, because Appellants' jurisdictional challenge was a challenge to the sufficiency of the government's evidence which would have involved determination of issues of fact going to the merits of the case, the district court did not err in determining that resolution of the jurisdictional question by pretrial motion to dismiss was not appropriate in this case. The proper procedure for raising Appellants' challenge to the sufficiency of the government's evidence to support a finding of assimilation to statelessness was by a motion for judgment of acquittal under Rule 29 and not by a pretrial motion to dismiss. Upon denial of Appellants' Rule 29 motions, the question was one for determination by the jury. 2