Opinion ID: 6342701
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: In General.—Beginning on the date of

Text: enactment of the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015 and ending on September 11, 2022, in addition to the assessment imposed under section 3013, the court shall assess an amount of $5,000 on any non-indigent person or entity convicted of an offense under—
slavery, and trafficking in persons);
abuse);
exploitation and other abuse of children);
for illegal sexual activity and related crimes); or UNITED STATES V. RANDALL 17
Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1324) (relating to human smuggling) . . . . 18 U.S.C. § 3014(a). Put simply, § 3014(a) requires that courts: “(1) assess (2) an amount of $5,000 (3) on any nonexempt person or entity (4) convicted of an offense (5) under certain enumerated chapters of the criminal code.” Johnman, 948 F.3d at 617. The key issue here is how to interpret “convicted of an offense.” Does it mean a $5,000 assessment for each time the person is “convicted of [a discrete enumerated] offense”? If that’s the case, then Randall’s assessment of $10,000 was proper since he was twice “convicted of an offense.” Or does it mean a single $5,000 assessment when a person is “convicted of [any one of the enumerated] offense[s]?” If so, then Randall could be fined only $5,000 for his two child pornography convictions. Lucikly, we do not operate on a blank slate in unpacking this tricky textual question. That’s because Congress enacted the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act against the backdrop of the phrase’s settled meaning. As expressly mentioned in the statute, § 3014(a) works in conjunction with 18 U.S.C. § 3013. See 18 U.S.C. § 3014(a) (imposing the special assessment “in addition to the assessment imposed under [18 U.S.C.] section 3013”). Section 3013, in turn, provides: (a) The court shall assess on any person convicted of an offense against the United States— (1) in the case of an infraction or a misdemeanor— 18 UNITED STATES V. RANDALL (A) if the defendant is an individual— [an amount ranging from $5 to $25] ... (2) in the case of a felony— (A) the amount of $100 if the defendant is an individual[.] 18 U.S.C. § 3013(a). As you can see, the special assessments in both § 3013(a) and § 3014(a) apply to any person “convicted of an offense.” And that wasn’t accidental. By way of background, Congress enacted § 3013 in 1984 to fund the Crime Victims Fund. See Victims of Crime Act of 1984, Pub. L. No. 98473, §§ 1402, 1405(a) (1984). The Crime Victims Fund provides, among other things, funding resources to programs supporting crime victims. 34 U.S.C. § 20101. In 2015, Congress established a similar Domestic Trafficking Victims’ Fund to provide financial support to victims of human trafficking and child exploitation. Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015, Pub. L. No. 114-22, § 101 (2015). Congress simultaneously enacted the special assessment in § 3014(a) to fund the Domestic Trafficking Victims’ Fund. 18 U.S.C. § 3014(c), (e), (h). In sum, § 3014 is closely related to § 3013 in terms of text, purpose, and statutory structure. How courts have interpreted the phrase “convicted of an offense” under § 3013 provides important guidance. That’s because when a phrase is “obviously transplanted from another legal source,” such as other legislation, “it brings the old soil with it.” Sekhar v. United States, 570 U.S. 729, 733 UNITED STATES V. RANDALL 19 (2013) (quoting Felix Frankfurter, Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 47 Colum. L. Rev. 527, 537 (1947)). In other words, when Congress adopts a phrase with a settled judicial interpretation, absent some indication to the contrary, we presume that Congress chose to give the phrase its established meaning. Shirk v. U.S. ex rel. Dep’t of Interior, 773 F.3d 999, 1004 (9th Cir. 2014); see also United States v. Prasad, 18 F.4th 313, 322–23 (9th Cir. 2021) (observing that the “prior construction canon” applies “to interpretations of the same wording in related statutes”). In this case, we have buckets of “soil” to help us give meaning to the phrase “convicted of an offense.” Every circuit court has interpreted § 3013’s assessment on a person “convicted of an offense” to apply separately to each count of conviction rather than to each offender. See United States v. Pagan, 785 F.2d 378, 381 (2d Cir. 1986); United States v. Donaldson, 797 F.2d 125, 128 (3d Cir. 1986); United States v. Dobbins, 807 F.2d 130, 132 (8th Cir. 1986); United States v. Smith, 857 F.2d 682, 686 (10th Cir. 1988); United States v. Nguyen, 916 F.2d 1016, 1020 (5th Cir. 1990); United States v. McGuire, 909 F.2d 440, 441–42 (11th Cir. 1990) (per curiam); United States v. Luongo, 11 F.3d 7, 10 (1st Cir. 1993). Most significantly, the Supreme Court formally settled the question in Rutledge v. United States, 517 U.S. 292 (1996). In that case, the Court held that “[Section] 3013 requires a federal district court to impose a [then-]$50 special assessment for every conviction.” Id. at 301 (emphasis added). The Court further blessed an assessment on “both convictions” in the case and held that § 3013 “required” it. Id. at 301–02. So under § 3013, the Court said, “a second conviction will amount to a second punishment.” Id. 20 UNITED STATES V. RANDALL We think the fact that the meaning of § 3013’s text is settled is not just persuasive, it’s all but conclusive. Congress sought to accomplish similar goals in enacting § 3013 and § 3014; it created a statutory framework where the two provisions work together and employed nearly identical language for the two. By doing so, Congress endorsed the long-settled interpretation of § 3013’s “convicted of an offense” phrase. Even without the prior construction canon, the ordinary meaning of § 3014’s “convicted of an offense” supports a separate assessment per conviction. In another federal statute, we’ve accepted that “offense” means a “discrete criminal violation.” Miranda v. Anchondo, 684 F.3d 844, 851 (9th Cir. 2012); see also Johnman, 948 F.3d at 617 (reaching a similar meaning for “offense” through dictionary definitions). The phrasing “an offense” is also significant. Its singular construction tells us that each “offense” requires a separate assessment. See Luongo, 11 F.3d at 10 (“[B]ecause the statute is phrased in the singular, its terms imply that each offense . . . calls for a separate special assessment, even when a single defendant is simultaneously convicted of multiple charges.”); see also Villavicencio-Rojas v. Lynch, 811 F.3d 1216, 1220 (9th Cir. 2016) (Berzon, J., concurring) (interpreting “an offense” in the context of another statute to refer to “each offense of the kind covered”). We also agree that “convicted” is “normally understood [a]s an offense-specific term.” Johnman, 948 F.3d at 617 (explaining that “convicted” is the past participle of “convict,” which means “to find or declare guilty of an offense or crime” or “to find (a person) guilty of a criminal offense” under dictionary definitions). UNITED STATES V. RANDALL 21 So taken together, “convicted of an offense” is best read as applying to each separate conviction for a statutory violation. We are also persuaded by the Third Circuit’s reasoning that “it is illogical to read § 3014’s application to depend not upon the number of offenses of which [the defendant] was convicted, but on the happenstance of whether she was tried for those offenses in one or more proceedings.” Id. at 619 (simplified). We acknowledge that the Second Circuit reached the opposite conclusion. That circuit held that “[a]s a matter of grammar and common understanding, ‘an amount’ on any person convicted means the amount is assessed one time.” Haverkamp, 958 F.3d at 149. While we agree that the $5,000 amount is “assessed one time,” that doesn’t answer whether it is one time per defendant or per count. The Second Circuit also relied on post-enactment legislative history—specifically, a single statement from the lead House sponsor of the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act on the two-year anniversary of its passage. Id. at 150 (quoting 163 Cong. Rec. H4564 (daily ed. May 24, 2017) (statement of Rep. Poe)). But we side with most judges that find “[p]ost-enactment legislative history (a contradiction in terms)” a questionable tool of statutory interpretation. Bruesewitz v. Wyeth LLC, 562 U.S. 223, 242 (2011). Finally, the Second Circuit focused on differences between § 3013 and § 3014 to conclude that the two provisions should be interpreted differently: • § 3013 imposes a varying assessment amount based on the severity of the offense (e.g., infraction, misdemeanor, or felony), while § 3014 requires only a 22 UNITED STATES V. RANDALL “single assessment” of $5,000 for conviction of an eligible offense; • § 3013 provides for a “nominal” amount (ranging from $5 to $100), while § 3014’s assessment is $5,000; and • § 3013 does not include an indigency exception, while § 3014 does. Haverkamp, 958 F.3d at 149–50 & n.3. The Second Circuit considered these differences “too pronounced” to interpret the two statutes in “lockstep.” Id. at 150 n.3. But none of these distinctions are significant enough to overcome the plain and settled meaning of “convicted of an offense.” That Congress sought to create an assessment program for all victims of federal crimes with more “nominal” amounts is not inconsistent with Congress also seeking to create a similar scheme focused on victims of trafficking and child exploitation with a heftier amount. 3 3 We therefore respectfully disagree with our dissenting colleague, who finds the Second Circuit’s approach more persuasive. The dissent makes one additional point that the Second Circuit does not appear to have advanced: that the durational provision in § 3014(g) refers to “an assessment” and “the assessment” in the singular, whereas the durational provision in § 3013(c) refers to “all assessments” in the plural. Dissent at 29. The dissent reasons that “[i]f Congress intended multiple assessments for multiple counts, it would have used the plural ‘assessments’” in § 3014. Dissent at 29. But § 3014(a) itself refers to “the assessment imposed under section 3013,” using the singular to the describe “the assessment” that we know is imposed per count of conviction. Rutledge, 517 U.S. at 301. And § 3013(c) earlier refers to “an assessment.” The dissent thus reads too much into Congress’s use of the words “assessment” and “assessments.” UNITED STATES V. RANDALL 23 So, considering the text and relevant statutory scheme, we conclude that Congress intended that assessments under § 3014 be imposed on a per-count basis. Section 3014 requires a $5,000 assessment for each of a defendant’s eligible convictions. The district court thus properly imposed a $10,000 assessment for Randall’s two counts of conviction. 4