Opinion ID: 184453
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Motion to Bifurcate

Text: 49 Rezaq also moved to bifurcate the proceedings, and have the jury first consider whether he had committed the offense of air piracy, as defined in section 1472(n), and then decide whether the death results provision in section 1472(n)(1)(B) applied. He asserted that the death results provision was simply a penalty enhancement provision, so that such bifurcation was necessary. The district court disagreed, finding that the death results provision was an element of the substantive offense defined by section 1472(n), and that severance should therefore be denied. 50 This court has wrestled with such problems before. In both United States v. Jackson, 824 F.2d 21 (D.C.Cir.1987), and in United States v. Michael, 10 F.3d 838 (D.C.Cir.1993), we were faced with the question of whether a statutory provision created two substantive offenses, or only one offense with the possibility of an enhanced penalty. Jackson involved a firearms statute that subjected those with previous convictions to higher penalties; Michael, a drug statute that applied higher penalties to possession of crack cocaine. The statutes we construed in Jackson and Michael and the one before us here all lack traits that might easily classify them as either creating two substantive offenses or creating one offense with an enhanced penalty. Each lacks  'common indicia of sentence-enhancement provisions'  like an explicit reference to a conviction ..., procedures for a sentencing hearing, a penalty derived as a multiplier of another offense, or a title indicating that it is a sentence-enhancement provision. Jackson, 824 F.2d at 23 (quoting United States v. Davis, 801 F.2d 754, 755-56 (5th Cir.1986)). But the statutes also do not expressly define two separate offenses; instead, they merely  'specif[y] one of the preceding classes of persons ... for different treatment.'  Jackson, 824 F.2d at 23 (quoting United States v. Hawkins, 811 F.2d 210, 219 (3d Cir.1987)). 51 In Jackson, we found that the fact of a defendant's prior conviction was a sentence enhancement, not an element of a substantive offense. The legislative history of the statute expressly treated this factor as a sentence enhancement, and we also observed that it would be highly prejudicial for the jury to consider this factor in deciding the defendant's guilt. See Jackson, 824 F.2d at 25-26. In Michael, by contrast, introducing evidence at trial that a drug was cocaine base would not have created an unusual risk of prejudice. Instead, we reasoned that, because treating this factor as a sentence enhancement would shift[ ] the issue [of the nature of the drug] from jury to court and deny[ ] the defendant the benefit of the reasonable doubt standard, ... we are reluctant to infer such classification in the absence of a reasonably clear statement from Congress, at least for a fact embedded in the statutory section defining the crime and closely related to the circumstances of the crime. Michael, 10 F.3d at 842 (citation omitted). We found no such clear statement in the statute or its legislative history, and so treated this factor as an element of a distinct offense. 52 The evidence before us is somewhat more equivocal than that in Michael. Section 1472(n)(1)(A) and section 1472(n)(1)(B) (in which the death results provision appears) are both introduced by the phrase shall be punished, and both list punishment options, suggesting the death results factor relates to punishment, not to guilt or innocence. 7 We do not think, however, that the placement of the death results factor after the phrase shall be punished should be accorded controlling weight. The structure of section 1472(n) is complex: it states the elements of  'an offense,' as defined in the [Hague Convention] in section 1472(n)(2), but then adds further substantive elements to this offense in section 1472(n)(1), including the requirement that the offense be committed aboard an aircraft in flight outside the special aircraft jurisdiction of the United States and that the defendant be afterward found in the United States. Given this convoluted structure, it should not be that surprising to find still another additional element, defining an additional substantive offense, in section 1472(n)(1)(B), after the statute appears to have changed the subject to punishment. 8 53 The United States also points to the structural relationship of section 1472(n) to another statutory provision, section 1473(c)(2). Under that provision, a death-penalty sentencing hearing must be held when a defendant is found guilty of or pleads guilty to an offense under section 1472(i) or 1472(n) of this title for which one of the sentences provided is death. 49 U.S.C. app. § 1473(c)(2). The death-penalty sentencing hearing is to occur before the jury which determined the defendant's guilt. § 1473(c)(2)(A). The hearing may also occur before a jury impaneled for the purpose of the hearing, but only if the defendant had pleaded guilty, was convicted in a trial without a jury, or if good cause existed to discharge the previous jury. § 1473(c)(2)(B). Finally, the hearing may be before the court alone, but only upon the motion of the defendant and with the approval of the court and the Government. § 1473(c)(2)(C). 54 Construing the death results provision as a penalty enhancement would be markedly at odds with the structure and purposes of section 1473(c). Section 1473(c) is triggered whenever a defendant is found guilty of or pleads guilty to an offense under sections 1472(i) or 1472(n) of this title for which one of the sentences provided is death. If section 1472(n) does not define two distinct crimes, then a defendant cannot be found guilty of or plead[ ] guilty to an offense ... for which one of the sentences provided is death; a defendant can only be found guilty of or plead guilty to a generalized offense under section 1472(n). Before section 1473(c) could apply, there would need to first be a guilty plea or guilty verdict; then an intermediate proceeding, presumably tried to the court (the usual rule at sentencing proceedings) as to whether death resulted; and then, if necessary, the death-penalty sentencing hearing provided for in section 1473(c). This structure is inconsistent with the language of section 1473(c), which contemplates a verdict that leads directly into a death-penalty sentencing hearing. It also ignores the strong policy expressed in section 1473(c) of trying all matters related to the imposition of the death sentence to a jury, where possible. If Congress intended to establish an ornate, three-stage procedure for the imposition of the death sentence in air piracy cases--with the middle stage, and only that stage, tried to the court--it would presumably have said so explicitly, either in the statute or in its legislative history. Neither contains any indication that this is what Congress intended. 55 This is an appropriate case then in which to apply Michael's rule that we are reluctant to infer ... classification [as a penalty enhancement] in the absence of a reasonably clear statement from Congress, at least for a fact embedded in the statutory section defining the crime and closely related to the circumstances of the crime. Michael, 10 F.3d at 842. The fact that a death resulted from a hijacking is closely related to the circumstances of the hijacking; indeed, this fact will ordinarily be admissible at trial, to prove that the defendant used force or intimidation in committing the crime. Cf. United States v. Rivera-Gomez, 67 F.3d 993, 996 (1st Cir.1995). As to the statute's structure, we have found that Congress did not clearly demarcate factors related to guilt from those related to punishment in drafting section 1472(n), and that the need to harmonize section 1472(n) with section 1473(c) militates against the penalty-enhancement reading. 56 We recognize that our reading of the death results provision of section 1472(n) is at odds with the prevailing judicial interpretation of a number of other statutes that incorporate death results provisions. Under federal statutes criminalizing arson, see United States v. Ryan, 9 F.3d 660, 667-69 (8th Cir.1993), vacated in part on other grounds, 41 F.3d 361 (1994) (interpreting 18 U.S.C. § 844(i)), carjacking, see Rivera-Gomez, 67 F.3d at 996 (1st Cir.1995) (interpreting 18 U.S.C. § 2119); United States v. Williams, 51 F.3d 1004, 1009 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 900, 116 S.Ct. 258, 133 L.Ed.2d 182 (1995) (same), and certain civil rights violations, see Catala Fonfrias v. United States, 951 F.2d 423, 424-25 (1st Cir.1991) (interpreting 18 U.S.C. §§ 241, 242), courts have read similarly-worded death results provisions as imposing penalty enhancements, not as creating separate offenses. We do not think that these cases conflict with our disposition here. Those cases generally turned on factors, such as legislative history, specific to the statutes in question. See, e.g., Ryan, 9 F.3d at 668; Catala Fonfrias, 951 F.2d at 427. They also relied on structural features of the statutes in question, like the fact that they only single[d] out a subset of [criminals] for more severe punishment. Ryan, 9 F.3d at 667. We found in Jackson, however, that structural cues of this kind may not be dispositive in the face of other contextual evidence. See Jackson, 824 F.2d at 23-24. Here, the unusual relationship of sections 1472(n) and 1473(c)(2) leads us to conclude that the death results provision must be classified as an element of a substantive offense. We therefore affirm the district court's ruling that Rezaq was not entitled to a bifurcated proceeding.