Opinion ID: 180038
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Delegation Concerns Raised by Defendant's Interpretation of SORNA

Text: Title 42 U.S.C. § 16913(d) states: The Attorney General shall have the authority to specify the applicability of the requirements of this subchapter to sex offenders convicted before the enactment of this chapter or its implementation in a particular jurisdiction, and to prescribe rules for the registration of any such sex offenders and for other categories of sex offenders who are unable to comply with subsection (b) of this section. Defendant argues that the first clause can be construed to empower the Attorney General to decide whether rather than simply how the subchapter's requirements apply to sex offenders whose predicate convictions predate SORNA's enactment. I think this construction must be rejected on avoidance grounds because I do not see that Congress provided any intelligible principle in the statute to guide the Attorney General in exercising such putative delegated legislative authority. In United States v. Guzman, 591 F.3d 83 (2d Cir.2010), this court identified no such concern, ruling that the Attorney General's exercise of legislative authority was highly circumscribed by SORNA provisions identifying the crimes requiring registration, the where, when, and how of registration, the information required of registrants, and the elements and penalties for the federal crime of failure to register. Id. at 93 (citing 42 U.S.C. §§ 16911, 16913-14, 18 U.S.C. § 2250). [2] Guzman also observed that the Attorney General's power under § 16913(d) would extend only to the limited class of individuals who were convicted of covered sex offenses prior to SORNA's enactment; the Attorney General cannot do much more than simply determine whether or not SORNA applies to those individuals. Id. In reaching the same conclusion, a panel of the Eleventh Circuit relied upon the detailed statutory specifications identified in Guzman, and also noted that Congress has undeniably provided the Attorney General with a policy framework in § 16901 to guide his exercise of discretion under § 16913(d), by building the following statement of legislative purpose into the statute: `In order to protect the public from sex offenders and offenders against children, ... Congress in this chapter establishes a comprehensive national system for the registration of those offenders.' United States v. Ambert, 561 F.3d 1202, 1213-14 (11th Cir.2009) (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 16901). I agree that the SORNA provisions cited in Guzman and Ambert indicate how persons to whom the statute applies may satisfy its requirements or be prosecuted for failing to do so. But I respectfully fail to see what guidance these provisions provide to the Attorney General in exercising legislative authority to decide whether or not SORNA's registration requirements should apply to prior offenders at all. See, e.g., United States v. Madera, 528 F.3d 852, 858 (11th Cir.2008) (adopting broad interpretation of § 16913(d)'s delegation, and noting Attorney General's  unfettered discretion to determine both how and whether SORNA was to be retroactively applied (first emphasis added)). Nor does the statutory purpose of creating a comprehensive national system for registration, 42 U.S.C. § 16901; see United States v. Ambert, 561 F.3d at 1213-14, hint as to what factors, if any, might counsel against applying the Act's registration requirements to prior offenders. The Attorney General could simply flip a coin, and thereby make the more than 500,000 persons convicted of sex offenses before July 27, 2006, subject to SORNA's registration requirementsor not. I am not alone in noting such a delegation concern with the construction of § 16913(d) urged by defendant: Without any discernible principle to guide him or her in the statute, the Attorney General could, willy nilly, a) require every single one of the estimated half million sex offenders in the nation to register under SORNA, b) through inaction, leave each of those half million offenders exempt from SORNA, c) do anything in between those two extremes, or d) change his or her mind on this question, making the statute variously prospective and retroactive, as administrative agencies are normally entitled to do when Congress delegates interpretive questions to them. United States v. Hinckley, 550 F.3d 926, 948 (10th Cir.2008) (Gorsuch, J., concurring) (citation omitted). I do not think these concerns are dispelled by the fact that the Attorney General's authority under § 16913(d) would apply only to a particular, capped class of offenders. United States v. Ambert, 561 F.3d at 1214; see also United States v. Guzman, 591 F.3d at 93 (noting authority applies only to limited class of individuals). A delegation of authority to determine the potential criminal exposure of half a million people cannot be deemed narrow. In any event, the non-delegation doctrine requires, not that the delegated authority be narrow in the scope of its application, but rather that Congress provide an intelligible principle to guide its exercise. I do not think SORNA provides such a principle. The identified constitutional concern with defendant's construction of § 16913(d) is further aggravated by the fact that it presumes that Congress, without providing any meaningful guidance, delegated to the Attorney General, the very officer charged with executive power to enforce the criminal laws, the legislative power unilaterally to pronounce the scope of a law with criminal consequences. Cf. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 139, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976) (Legislative power, as distinguished from executive power, is the authority to make laws, but not to enforce them or appoint the agents charged with the duty of such enforcement. The latter are executive functions. (internal quotation marks omitted)); Mistretta v. United States, 488 U.S. at 391 n. 17, 109 S.Ct. 647 (recognizing that uniting power to prosecute and power to sentence in executive would raise constitutional concerns). This I expect is why the Supreme Court has suggested, even if not decided, that greater congressional specificity might be required of delegations in the criminal context. Touby v. United States, 500 U.S. at 165-66, 111 S.Ct. 1752; see also United States v. Dhafir, 461 F.3d 211, 216 (2d Cir.2006). Unlike the delegation of legislative authority implicit in defendant's urged construction, delegations that have previously been upheld in the criminal context have been accompanied by rigorous, meaningful constraints not only on the scope of the delegated authority, but also on the manner of its exercise. Touby v. United States, 500 U.S. at 166, 111 S.Ct. 1752 (upholding delegation where Attorney General was required, inter alia, to determine exercise of authority was `necessary to avoid an imminent hazard to the public safety' (quoting 21 U.S.C. § 811(h)(1))); [3] see also United States v. Dhafir, 461 F.3d at 216 (upholding delegation where `the authorities granted to the President ... may only be exercised to deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat with respect to which a national emergency has been declared' (brackets omitted) (quoting 50 U.S.C. § 1701(b))). [4] In sum, while Guzman plainly controls our review, I continue to have reservations concerning the substantial delegation concerns raised by defendant's proposed interpretation of SORNA. The court conclusively eliminates these concerns today by answering the question left open in Guzman, holding that the text and structure of the statute clearly do not support defendant's construction and, in fact, signal Congress's clear intent for SORNA's registration requirements to take effect on the date of its enactment even as to persons previously convicted of predicate sex offenses. I note simply that even if we had identified any statutory ambiguity, the rule of constitutional avoidance would further prompt me to construe § 16913(d) as the court does today to avoid possible constitutional infirmities in defendant's construction. See, e.g., Clark v. Martinez, 543 U.S. at 381, 125 S.Ct. 716 (describing constitutional avoidance as tool for choosing between competing plausible interpretations of a statutory text, resting on the reasonable presumption that Congress did not intend the alternative which raises serious constitutional doubts); see also United States v. Hinckley, 550 F.3d at 948 (Gorsuch, J., concurring) (The Supreme Court tells us that we ought to construe statutes to avoid problems of potential constitutional dimension when a plausible alternative interpretation exists. And plainly a reasonable alternative [interpretation of § 16913(d)] exists in this case far more consonant with every indicator of congressional intent. (citation omitted)). Thus, that rule only reinforces my decision to affirm.