Opinion ID: 186687
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Constitutionality of Sullivan's Indictment

Text: 19 Appellant makes the following argument in support of his appeal: 20 Title 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B) is unconstitutional as applied to Sullivan because the statute exceeds Congress' authority pursuant to the Commerce Clause. In [ United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 558, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995)], the Supreme Court identified three areas that Congress could regulate pursuant to the Commerce Clause: 1) the channels of interstate commerce; 2) the instrumentalities of interstate commerce; and 3) conduct that substantially affects interstate commerce. 514 U.S. at 558-59, 115 S.Ct. 1624. As case authority shows, the conduct regulated here — possession — is a purely intrastate activity, and therefore if it may be regulated at all, it can be regulated only pursuant to the third Lopez category. . . . Congress cannot regulate Sullivan's conduct pursuant to the third Lopez category because the conduct did not substantially affect interstate commerce. 21 Appellant's Br. at 11-12. The problem with this argument is that it completely ignores the Court's decision in Gonzales v. Raich. 22 The question before the Court in Raich was whether the power vested in Congress by Article I, § 8, of the Constitution `[t]o make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution' its authority to `regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States' includes the power to prohibit the local cultivation and use of marijuana in compliance with California law. 125 S.Ct. at 2199. In answering this question in the affirmative, the Court tellingly noted: 23 Our case law firmly establishes Congress' power to regulate purely local activities that are part of an economic class of activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. See, e.g., [ Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 151, 91 S.Ct. 1357, 28 L.Ed.2d 686 (1971)]; Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 128-129, 63 S.Ct. 82, 87 L.Ed. 122 (1942). As we stated in Wickard, even if appellee's activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce. Id., at 125, 63 S.Ct. 82. We have never required Congress to legislate with scientific exactitude. When Congress decides that the `total incidence' of a practice poses a threat to a national market, it may regulate the entire class. 24 Id. at 2205-06. Careful review of the Court's decision in Raich makes it clear to us that the holding there controls the disposition of this case. If, under Raich, Congress may criminalize purely intrastate production and use of marijuana, it follows here that it may criminalize possession of child pornography that has been transmitted through multiple states via the Internet. 25 Under federal law, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug, 21 U.S.C. § 812(c), and its use is therefore illegal, id. §§ 841(a)(1), 844(a), with a very limited exception for research uses, id. § 823(f). California's Compassionate Use Act, however, allowed certain patients with a doctor's approval to cultivate, possess, and consume marijuana. Raich, 125 S.Ct. at 2199. The plaintiffs in Raich included California residents who suffer[ed] from a variety of serious medical conditions and. . . sought to avail themselves of medical marijuana pursuant to the terms of the Compassionate Use Act. Id. at 2199-2200. They were under the care of licensed, board-certified family practitioners, who had concluded that marijuana was the only drug available that would give these parties effective treatment. Id. at 2200. When it was determined that their possession and use of marijuana violated federal law, the Raich plaintiffs brought suit against the Attorney General seeking injunctive and declaratory relief prohibiting the enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) insofar as it abrogated their rights under the Compassionate Use Act. As noted above, the only issue before the Court in Raich was whether Congress could criminalize intrastate possession and use of marijuana. Significantly, the Raich plaintiffs did not attack the provisions of the CSA on their face, but mounted only an as-applied challenge. See id. at 2204-05. Despite the narrowness of the challenge, the Court found no constitutional defect in the Government's enforcement of federal drug law. 26 In support of the proposition that Congress had power to regulate purely local activities that are part of an economic `class of activities' that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce, id. at 2205, the Court described the evolution of the Commerce Clause: 27 As charted in considerable detail in United States v. Lopez, our understanding of the reach of the Commerce Clause, as well as Congress' assertion of authority thereunder, has evolved over time. The Commerce Clause emerged as the Framers' response to the central problem giving rise to the Constitution itself: the absence of any federal commerce power under the Articles of Confederation. For the first century of our history, the primary use of the Clause was to preclude the kind of discriminatory state legislation that had once been permissible. Then, in response to rapid industrial development and an increasingly interdependent national economy, Congress ushered in a new era of federal regulation under the commerce power, beginning with the enactment of the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887, 24 Stat. 379, and the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U.S.C. § 2 et seq. 28 Cases decided during that new era, which now spans more than a century, have identified three general categories of regulation in which Congress is authorized to engage under its commerce power. First, Congress can regulate the channels of interstate commerce. Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 150, 91 S.Ct. 1357, 28 L.Ed.2d 686 (1971). Second, Congress has authority to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, and persons or things in interstate commerce. Ibid. Third, Congress has the power to regulate activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. Ibid.; NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 37, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893 (1937). 29 Id. at 2205 (footnotes omitted). The Court then noted that only the third category — regulation of activities that substantially affect interstate commerce — was at issue in the case. Id. 30 In amplifying this third category, the Raich Court focused on its decision in Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 63 S.Ct. 82, 87 L.Ed. 122 (1942), which had held that Congress' interstate commerce authority allowed it to regulate the production of wheat intended for personal consumption on a farm. Central to the Court's analysis in Wickard was the premise that even if the effect of homegrown wheat on interstate commerce was trivial, it remained within the ambit of congressional authority. See Wickard, 317 U.S. at 127-28, 63 S.Ct. 82. The Raich Court found that the similarities between this case and Wickard are striking. 125 S.Ct. at 2206. Both cases involved the cultivation, for home consumption, [of] a fungible commodity for which there is an established interstate market. Id. And [j]ust as the Agricultural Adjustment Act [in Wickard ] was designed `to control the volume [of wheat] moving in interstate and foreign commerce in order to avoid surpluses. . .' and consequently control the market price, a primary purpose of the CSA [in Raich ] is to control the supply and demand of controlled substances in both lawful and unlawful drug markets. Id. at 2206-07 (third and fourth alterations in original) (internal citations omitted). The Court thus concluded that Congress had a rational basis for concluding that leaving home-consumed marijuana outside federal control would . . . affect price and market conditions, especially given the risk of illicit diversion of homegrown marijuana into the interstate market. Id. at 2207. 31 The Court in Raich then stated the applicable test for assessing the scope of Congress' authority under the Commerce Clause to enact comprehensive legislation: 32 [W]e stress that the task before us is a modest one. We need not determine whether respondents' activities, taken in the aggregate, substantially affect interstate commerce in fact, but only whether a rational basis exists for so concluding. 33 Id. at 2208. Applying this test, the Court held that, 34 [g]iven the enforcement difficulties that attend distinguishing between marijuana cultivated locally and marijuana grown elsewhere ... and concerns about diversion into illicit channels, we have no difficulty concluding that Congress had a rational basis for believing that failure to regulate the intrastate manufacture and possession of marijuana would leave a gaping hole in the CSA. Thus, as in Wickard, when it enacted comprehensive legislation to regulate the interstate market in a fungible commodity, Congress was acting well within its authority to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper to regulate Commerce . . . among the several States. U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8. That the regulation ensnares some purely intrastate activity is of no moment. As we have done many times before, we refuse to excise individual components of that larger scheme. 35 Id. at 2209 (footnote omitted and second ellipsis in original). 36 Applying this test to facts of this case, we must conclude that Congress was acting well within its authority under Article I, § 8 — i.e., to regulate activities that substantially affect interstate commerce, Raich, 125 S.Ct. at 2205 — in criminalizing possession of child pornography transmitted through several states via the Internet. The prohibition against possessing child pornography transported in interstate commerce by computer is one important aspect of a comprehensive legislative scheme aimed at eliminating traffic in child pornography. Section 2252A(a)(5)(B), which is at issue in this case, was enacted as part of the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-208, § 121(3), 110 Stat. 3009, 3009-28 (1996) (the CPPA). The regulatory scheme enacted by Congress to deal with child pornography prohibits: exploiting children by producing child pornography using materials in interstate commerce, 18 U.S.C. § 2251 (2000); transporting, shipping, or receiving depictions of child pornography in foreign or interstate commerce, id. § 2252; producing or exporting child pornography abroad with the intent that it enter the United States, id. § 2260; and possessing child pornography that has traveled in interstate commerce, id. § 2252A. The statute also subjects property used in child pornography offenses to criminal and civil forfeiture provisions. Id. §§ 2253-2254. 37 Like the illicit drug networks motivating passage of the CSA, the trade in child pornography is quintessentially economic. See Raich, 125 S.Ct. at 2211. The Court explained that economics refers to the production, distribution, and consumption of commodities. Id. at 2211 (quoting WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 720 (1966)). The activities targeted by Congress in its anti-child pornography legislation clearly fit this definition. Like marijuana, child pornography is a fungible commodity for which there is an established, albeit illegal, interstate market. Id. at 2206. Controlling the trade of child pornography thus requires regulation of the illicit marketplace. Intrastate possession of digital child pornography is susceptible to diversion into interstate markets, at least as much as marijuana. Accordingly, the Government's efforts to control the illicit marketplace by limiting supply and demand is facilitated by regulation of intrastate possession of child pornography. 38 Indeed, the economic effects in this case appear to be even more compelling than those in Raich or Wickard. In contrast to wheat or marijuana, the supply of electronic images of child pornography has a viral character: every time one user downloads an image, he simultaneously produces a duplicate version of that image. Transfers of wheat or marijuana merely subdivide an existing cache; transfers of digital pornography, on the other hand, multiply the existing supply of the commodity, so that even if the initial possessor's holdings are destroyed, subsequent possessors may further propagate the images. This means that each new possessor increases the available supply of pornographic images. This multiplying effect highlights the importance of eliminating a possessor's stash in the first instance, before it can be disseminated into the marketplace. 39 As Congress noted in the findings attached to the CPPA, prohibiting the possession and viewing of child pornography will encourage the possessors of such material to rid themselves of or destroy the material, thereby helping to protect the victims of child pornography and to eliminate the market for the sexual exploitative use of children. Pub.L. No. 104-208, § 121(1)(12), 110 Stat. at 3009-27 (emphasis added). In Wickard, the Court recognized that the congressional objective of controlling the market for wheat by regulating its price can be accomplished as effectively by sustaining or increasing the demand as by limiting supply, including the homegrown supply consumed by farmers. 317 U.S. at 127-28, 63 S.Ct. 82. Criminalizing possession of child pornography likewise increases the price of pornography by attaching the risk of prosecution, a market intervention meant to eliminate the illicit trade. 40 In sum, following Raich, we find that a rational basis exists for believing that failure to regulate the intrastate possession of child pornography that has been transported in interstate or foreign commerce. . . by computer, see 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B), would leave a significant gap in Congress' comprehensive efforts to eliminate the market for sexually exploitative uses of children. That the application of § 2252A(a)(5)(B) might ensnare[] some purely intrastate activity is of no moment. Raich, 125 S.Ct. at 2209. Congress legitimately identified a national problem that is quintessentially economic, i.e., it involves the manufacture and distribution of a commodity subject to the forces of supply and demand. To ameliorate that problem, Congress intervened in an illicit marketplace. Because it could rationally conclude that intrastate possession of child pornography has an effect on those market forces, it acted within its authority in proscribing possession. Both the holding and reasoning of Raich apply easily to this case. 41 It is noteworthy that every appellate court that has considered this question post- Raich has reached the same conclusion that we reach today. In Maxwell II, the Eleventh Circuit was able to find very little to distinguish constitutionally Maxwell's claim from Raich's. Maxwell II, 446 F.3d at 1216 (footnote omitted). Following the Court's analysis in Raich, the Maxwell II court determined that the CPPA is part of a comprehensive regulatory scheme criminalizing the receipt, distribution, sale, production, possession, solicitation and advertisement of child pornography. Id. at 1216-17. The court therefore reversed its earlier course and upheld Maxwell's conviction. The Fourth Circuit likewise rejected an as-applied challenge to § 2252A(a)(5)(B) in United States v. Forrest, 429 F.3d 73 (4th Cir.2005). Having found the case before it strikingly similar to Raich,  the court explained that in both instances Congress had a rational basis for concluding that prohibition of mere local possession of the commodity was essential to the regulation of `an established, albeit illegal, interstate market.' Id. at 78 (quoting Raich, 125 S.Ct. at 2206). Finally, the Tenth Circuit has twice invoked Raich in rejecting similar attacks on § 2251's prohibition against producing child pornography using materials that have been shipped in interstate commerce, United States v. Grimmett, 439 F.3d 1263 (10th Cir.2006); United States v. Jeronimo-Bautista, 425 F.3d 1266 (10th Cir.2005), and the Sixth Circuit has cited Raich in rebuffing an attack on § 2252(a)(1), United States v. Chambers, 441 F.3d 438 (6th Cir.2006). Applying the principles set forth in Raich, we, too, are constrained to reject the constitutional challenge to § 2252A(a)(5)(B).