Opinion ID: 620046
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application to Mr. Carel’s Claim

Text: The cases addressed in the foregoing discussion demonstrate that, pursuant to the Necessary and Proper Clause, “Congress has the implied power to criminalize any conduct that might interfere with the exercise of an enumerated power, and also the additional power to imprison people who violate those (inferentially authorized) laws, and the additional power to provide for the safe and reasonable management of those prisons, and the additional power to regulate those prisoners’ behavior even after their release.” Comstock, 130 U.S. at 1964 (emphasis added). They further demonstrate that Congress also has the power to impose nonpunitive civil sanctions on individuals convicted of violating a validly enacted federal criminal statute. See id. at 1965; Plotts, 347 F.3d at 879 n.5. “[E]ach of th[e]se powers . . . is ultimately derived from . . . the enumerated power that justifies a criminal defendant’s arrest or conviction.” Comstock, 130 U.S. at 1964 (quotations omitted). Mr. Carel’s status as a sex offender is based on his prior conviction for sexual abuse of a minor in Indian country. Like the child pornography statute at issue in Plotts, it is undisputed that Congress has authority to criminalize sexual abuse of a minor in Indian country. See, e.g., United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375, 383-85 (1886) (holding that Congress has authority to criminalize conduct that occurs on Indian reservations); see also United States v. Jicarilla Apache Nation, 131 S. Ct. 2313, 2327 (2011) (recognizing Kagama as sound authority). Indeed, the Supreme Court has 21 expressly stated that “Congress has undoubted constitutional power to prescribe a criminal code applicable in Indian country.” United States v. Antelope, 430 U.S. 641, 648 (1977). Accordingly, to determine whether Congress exceeded the scope of its authority by requiring Mr. Carel to register as a sex offender, we need only decide whether § 16913 “is rationally related to the effectuation of that criminal statute and, thus, consonant with the Constitution’s insistence that a federal statute represent a rational means for implementing a constitutional grant of legislative authority.” Yelloweagle, 643 F.3d at 1287 (quotations and citations omitted). We conclude that application of § 16913 to Mr. Carel—a federal sex offender on supervised release—satisfies this rational-relation test. As applied to Mr. Carel, § 16913 is “reasonably adapted,” United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 121 (1941), to the effectuation of the statute under which Mr. Carel was convicted and to Congress’s authority to impose nonpunitive civil sanctions on those who violate validly enacted federal criminal statutes. See Comstock, 130 U.S. at 1964-65; Plotts, 347 F.3d at 879 n.5. SORNA’s declared purpose is to “to protect the public from sex offenders and offenders against children . . . [by] establish[ing] a comprehensive national system for the registration of those offenders.” 42 U.S.C. § 16901. Congress could reasonably have concluded that federally adjudicated sex offenders would pose an especially high danger to the public if released from custody, or permitted to remain in the public on supervised release, without being required to register as a sex offender. And, as suggested in SORNA’s legislative history, Congress could have reasonably concluded that a 22 reasonable number of such individuals would likely not comply with state sex-offender registration requirements without a federal statute requiring them to do so. Congress’s desire to address these specific challenges, taken together with its direct supervisory interest over Mr. Carel—a federal sex offender on supervised release due to a conviction for a validly enacted federal criminal offense—supports the conclusion that § 16913 “satisfies review for means-ends rationality.” Comstock, 130 U.S. at 1962 (quotations omitted); see also Carr, 130 S. Ct at 2239 (noting that “the Federal Government has a direct supervisory interest” over persons convicted of federal crimes”). Mr. Carel contends that § 16913 cannot be upheld as a valid exercise of Congress’s authority under the Necessary and Proper Clause for several reasons. He first argues that the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Comstock is inapplicable to this case because the civil-commitment statute at issue in Comstock applies only to federal offenders who are in federal custody.9 Mr. Carel is correct that, on its face, § 16913 applies to all federal sex offenders, even those not currently in federal custody or on federal probation or supervised release, and that the scope of § 16913 is broader than the statute at issue in Comstock. But as explained above, Mr. Carel was required to comply with § 16913 as a condition of his supervised release and was still on supervised release 9 Mr. Carel offers several hypothetical scenarios in support of his position that Congress does not have authority under the Necessary and Proper Clause to apply § 16913 to federal sex offenders. However, because Mr. Carel has asserted an as-applied challenge, we do not address the hypothetical scenarios he has raised. See Scherer, 653 F.3d at 1245 (noting that in an as-applied challenge, plaintiffs “seek to vindicate their own rights based on their own circumstances” (emphasis added)). 23 when he was prosecuted for failing to comply with SORNA’s requirements. Because we review Mr. Carel’s constitutional challenge to § 16913 as an as-applied challenge, we need not and do not address whether application of § 16913 to a federal sex offender not in federal custody or on federal supervised release would be a permissible exercise of congressional authority under the Necessary and Proper Clause. Next, Mr. Carel argues that the federal government’s authority to safeguard the public from dangers posed by federal offenders is limited to “safeguarding the public from those in federal custody.” Aplt. Reply Br. at 30. But Comstock expressly recognized that, pursuant to the Necessary and Proper Clause, “Congress has the implied power to criminalize any conduct that might interfere with the exercise of an enumerated power, and also the additional power to imprison people who violate those (inferentially authorized) laws, and the additional power to provide for the safe and reasonable management of those prisons, and the additional power to regulate those prisoners’ behavior even after their release.” 130 U.S. at 1964 (emphasis added). Finally, Mr. Carel argues that requiring him to register as a sex offender is too attenuated from Congress’s authority to enact the statute under which he was originally convicted. His argument appears to rely on a theory similar to one advanced by the petitioner in Comstock—that “when legislating pursuant to the Necessary and Proper Clause, Congress’s authority can be no more than one step removed from a specifically enumerated power.” See 130 S. Ct. at 1963. But Comstock rejected this argument. See Id. at 1964 (“[W]e must reject respondents’ argument that the Necessary and Proper Clause permits no more than a single step between an enumerated power and an Act of 24 Congress.”). We recognize that there are several logical steps between Congress’s authority to criminalize sexual abuse of a minor in Indian country and its ability to require a person convicted of that offense who is on supervised release to register as a sex offender. However, because it is undisputed that Congress had authority to enact the statute under which Mr. Carel was convicted and because § 16913 is reasonably adapted to the effectuation of that statute and to Congress’s authority to impose nonpunitive civil sanctions on those who violate that statute, the number of steps between Congress’s action and its enumerated power is not determinative. See id.