Opinion ID: 3064679
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: recent commerce clause jurisprudence

Text: Although we consider Scarborough as the defining case, we cannot ignore the Supreme Court’s shifting emphasis in its Commerce Clause jurisprudence over the past decade. Alderman posits that Scarborough has been overruled by the Court’s recent Commerce Clause cases. Our review of those authorities does not support this view — Scarborough has not been discarded. See Hanna, 55 F.3d at 1462 (noting that Scarborough continues to be viable after Lopez). In Lopez and its progeny, the Supreme Court delineated “three general categories of regulation in which Congress is authorized to engage under its commerce power.” Gonzalez v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 16 (2005). These categories include: “(1) the use of the channels of interstate commerce; (2) the instrumentalities of interstate commerce . . . ; and (3) activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.” Jones, 231 F.3d at 514 (quoting Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558-59) (internal quotes and alterations omitted); see also Raich, 545 U.S. at 33-34 (Scalia, J., concurring) (noting that for over thirty years, “our cases have mechanically recited that the ComUNITED STATES v. ALDERMAN 5631 merce Clause permits congressional regulation of three categories”). The “categories have never been deemed exclusive or mandatory.” United States v. Clark, 435 F.3d 1100, 1116 (9th Cir. 2006). “The categories are a guide, not a straitjacket.” Id. Hence, while we generally analyze cases in the framework of these three categories, we are not obligated to “jam[ ] a square peg into a round hole” — especially when that peg has already had a suitable spot of its own carved out by the Court. Id. at 1103. To be sure, the first two categories are not particularly applicable here.4 The third category described in Lopez “define[s] the extent of Congress’s power over purely intrastate [ ] activities that nonetheless have substantial interstate effects.” United States v. Robertson, 514 U.S. 669, 671 (1995) (emphasis in original). In Morrison, the Supreme Court “established what is now the controlling four-factor test for determining whether a regulated activity ‘substantially affects’ interstate commerce.” United States v. McCoy, 323 F.3d 1114, 1119 (9th Cir. 2003). One of these considerations is “whether the statute contains any ‘express jurisdictional element.’ ” Morrison, 529 U.S. at 611. “The purpose of a jurisdictional hook is to limit the reach of a particular statute to a discrete set of cases that substantially affect interstate commerce.” McCoy, 323 F.3d at 1124. “Such a jurisdictional 4 Neither party seriously contends that § 931 can be justified under either of the first two categories. As the Tenth Circuit explained in Patton, because § 931 “prohibits the stationary and entirely intrastate act of possession” and “is not directed at the movement of body armor through the channels of interstate commerce . . . [§ 931] cannot be upheld under Congress’s power to regulate the channels of interstate commerce.” United States v. Patton, 451 F.3d 615, 621 (2006). Nor can the statute be understood as regulating an instrumentality or “thing in” commerce because the statute “does not protect body armor while it is moving in interstate shipment [nor] is [it] directed at the use of body armor in ways that threaten or injure the instrumentalities of interstate commerce.” Id. at 622. 5632 UNITED STATES v. ALDERMAN element may establish that the enactment is in pursuance of Congress’ regulation of interstate commerce.” Morrison, 529 U.S. at 612 (2000). Unlike the statutes at issue in Lopez and Morrison, § 931 is limited by an express jurisdictional provision. Specifically, the statute regulates body armor “sold or offered for sale, in interstate or foreign commerce.” Cf. Cortes, 299 F.3d at 1036 (concluding that a carjacking statute contained an express jurisdictional hook because it was limited to vehicles “transported, shipped, or received in interstate or foreign commerce”). Significantly, the “jurisdictional hook” in this statute is substantially different from the provision we rejected as essentially meaningless in McCoy, 323 F.3d at 1116. In McCoy, we examined a child pornography statute with a jurisdictional provision that allowed the statute to be applied to all child pornography “which was produced using materials which have been mailed or so shipped or transported” in “interstate or foreign commerce.” Id. at 1116 (emphasis in original, some emphasis omitted). We noted that “the limiting jurisdictional factor [was] almost useless” because “all but the most self-sufficient child pornographers will rely on film, cameras, or chemicals that traveled in interstate commerce and will therefore fall within the sweep of the statue.” Id. at 1125 (quoting United States v. Rodia, 194 F.3d 465, 473 (3rd Cir. 1999)). By contrast, § 931 only affects body armor that is itself “sold or offered for sale” in interstate commerce. 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(35). Thus, for example, homemade body armor or body armor produced intra-state would not be caught within the sweep of the statute. Cf. Polanco, 93 F.3d at 563 (holding that a jurisdictional element “requiring the government to prove that the defendant shipped, transported, or possessed a firearm in interstate commerce, or received a firearm that had been shipped or transported in interstate commerce . . . UNITED STATES v. ALDERMAN 5633 insures, on a case-by-case basis, that a defendant’s actions implicate interstate commerce to a constitutionally adequate degree.”); [7] We recognize that a jurisdictional hook is not always “a talisman that wards off constitutional challenges.” Patton, 451 F.3d at 632. As we have explained, [t]he Supreme Court’s decisions in Lopez and Morrison [ ], reject the view that a jurisdictional element, standing alone, serves to shield a statute from constitutional infirmities under the Commerce Clause. At most, the Court has noted that such an element “may establish that the enactment is in pursuance of Congress’ regulation of interstate commerce,” or that it may “lend support” to this conclusion. McCoy, 323 F.3d at 1125 (quoting Morrison, 529 U.S. at 61213). Consequently, when traveling in uncharted waters, we must consider the jurisdictional hook together with additional factors, such as congressional findings. Id.; see also United States v. Kirk, 105 F.3d 997 (5th Cir. 1997) (evenly divided court en banc) (upholding machine gun ban under third prong of Lopez rather than under a predecessor case to Scarborough). Here, we are confronted by the unique situation where a nearly identical jurisdictional hook has been blessed by the Supreme Court. Therefore, we need not engage in the careful parsing of post-Lopez case law that would otherwise be required. Rather, we recognize that this determination is controlled by the Court’s analysis in Scarborough, and that “[u]ntil the Supreme Court tells us otherwise . . . we [must] follow Scarborough unwaveringly.” Cortes, 299 F.3d at 1037 n.2.