Opinion ID: 4557742
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Indictment Is Sufficient.

Text: Osipova asserts that the indictment is insufficient for not including “the essential facts of the offense, the means by which [she] allegedly committed the offense, or an assertion that those means were unknown to the Government[.]” Appellant’s Opening Br. at 11. “We test the indictment solely on the basis of the allegations made on its face, and such allegations are to be taken as true.” Ambort, 405 F.3d at 1116 (quoting United States v. Reitmeyer, 356 F.3d 1313, 1316–17 (10th Cir. 2004)) (internal quotation marks omitted). “[T]he question is not whether the government has presented sufficient evidence to support the charge, but solely whether the allegations in the indictment, if true, are sufficient to establish a violation of the charged offense.”7 United States v. Todd, 446 F.3d 1062, 1068 (10th Cir. 2006) (citations omitted). We apply a two-part test to determine the indictment’s sufficiency: 7 In this Part, we are deciding only whether the indictment suffices under the government’s definition of § 875(b)’s “threat to kidnap.” We later decide whether the government has properly charged a crime with this definition. See infra Part III. 12 “First, the indictment must contain the elements of the offense and sufficiently apprise the defendant of what [s]he must be prepared to meet; second, it must be such as to show to what extent [s]he may plead a former acquittal or conviction as a bar to further prosecution for the same cause.” United States v. Wells, 873 F.3d 1241, 1254 (10th Cir. 2017) (quoting United States v. Berres, 777 F.3d 1083, 1089 (10th Cir. 2015)). “[W]here the indictment quotes the language of a statute and includes the date, place, and nature of illegal activity, it ‘need not go further and allege in detail the factual proof that will be relied upon to support the charges.’” United States v. Redcorn, 528 F.3d 727, 733 (10th Cir. 2008) (quoting United States v. Dunn, 841 F.2d 1026, 1029 (10th Cir. 1988)). Here, Count 1 of the indictment alleges: On or about April 2, 2014, and continuing through the date of the filing of this Indictment, in the District of Kansas and elsewhere, the defendant . . . removed a child from the United States and retained a child outside the United States with intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of another’s parental rights, in violation of Title 18, United States Code Section 1204. Appellant’s App. at 17. Count 2 alleges: Between August 27 and August 30, 2015, as part of the continuing offense in Count 1, the defendant . . . transmitted in interstate and foreign commerce a communication containing a threat to kidnap, that is, to continue to retain a child outside the United States with the intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of another’s parental rights, and the defendant did so with the intent to extort from any person any money or thing of value, in violation of Title 18, United States Code Section 875(b). Id. at 18. Counts 3 through 5 are identical to Count 2 in their allegations except for the alleged date of the offense. See id. at 18–19 (count 3 charging “On or about November 21, 2015”), 19 (count 4 charging “On or about December 17, 2015”), 19–20 (count 5 charging “On or about December 5–6, 2016”). 13 As Osipova concedes, the indictment includes the elements of the offenses charged. The first count’s language is nearly identical to that of the internationalparental-kidnapping statute. See 18 U.S.C. § 1204(a). Counts 2 through 5 track the extortionate-communications statute except for (erroneously, as later discussed) defining kidnap as “to continue to retain a child outside the United States with the intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of another’s parental rights.” Compare Appellant’s App. at 18–20, with 18 U.S.C. § 875(b). The indictment “contains the date, place, and nature of the charged illegal activity. It is thus entirely sufficient to give [Osipova] fair notice and enable [her] to determine whether to raise a double jeopardy defense.” Redcorn, 528 F.3d at 734. That is all the law requires. See id. Osipova’s argument to the contrary is unavailing. Osipova argues that the parental-kidnapping count lacks specificity because it excludes the name of the removed child, the means of removal (or that the means were unknown to the government), the location to which Osipova removed the child, the person whose parental rights she intended to obstruct, and the basis of that person’s acquiring parental rights. Likewise, she argues that the extortionate-communications counts lack specificity because they exclude the location from which she sent the alleged threats, the location at which the alleged threats were received, the means of sending the alleged threats, the language of the alleged threats, the name of the retained child, the location at which she retained the child, the person to whom she sent the threats, the person whose rights she intended to obstruct, and the basis of that person’s acquiring parental rights. Osipova’s argument for more specificity, however, amounts to a request 14 for the facts that the government would rely on to support the charges. Our precedent is clear that the indictment is sufficient without such factual proof. Redcorn, 528 F.3d at 733 (citation omitted). Moreover, Osipova has not claimed prejudice from any lack of specificity in the indictment. In fact, her counsel admitted at the motion hearing that “[t]here’s litigation history which would put [Osipova] and her attorneys on notice what she’s to defend.” Appellee’s Suppl. App. vol. I at 45:3–5. “[I]nadequacy of an indictment requires reversal only if it prejudiced the defendant.” United States v. Harrold, 796 F.2d 1275, 1278 (10th Cir. 1986) (citation omitted); see also United States v. Doe, 572 F.3d 1162, 1175 (10th Cir. 2009) (applying harmless-error review). We thus affirm the district court’s denial of Osipova’s motion to dismiss the indictment. III. Osipova’s 18 U.S.C. § 875(b) Convictions Rest on an Erroneous Interpretation of the “Threat to Kidnap” Element. Osipova asserts that the government failed to introduce sufficient evidence to sustain her extortionate-communication convictions—particularly that the government failed to prove that she made a threat to kidnap. She first argues that her messages to Mobley did not communicate a threat to continue to retain S.M. outside the United States,8 because she never offered to return S.M. to the United States. This argument assumes, however, that the district court’s definition of “kidnap” was 8 The district court instructed the jury that under § 875(b), “[t]o ‘kidnap’ any person includes continuing to retain them outside of the United States with the intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of parental rights.” Appellant’s App. at 187:19–21. 15 correct, i.e., that § 875(b)’s use of “kidnap” encompasses the decades-later-enacted separate § 1204 crime of “international parental kidnapping.” But noting the exclusion of parental kidnapping from the federal kidnapping statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1201,9 we questioned at oral argument whether § 875(b)’s “kidnap” is so malleable. We thus ordered supplemental briefing on that general question. In her supplemental brief, Osipova asserts that “applying the ordinarymeaning canon of statutory interpretation” to § 875(b)’s “kidnap” shows that it “does not include parental retention.” Appellant’s Suppl. Br. at 1. The government responds that “the plain language” of § 875(b) indicates otherwise, with no “exceptions or exclusions for certain perpetrators or victims.”10 Appellee Suppl. Resp. Br. at 1–2. But the government does not cite a single case involving a prosecution for a threat to kidnap under § 875(b) based on an “international parental kidnapping” under § 1204; a single case or pattern jury instruction using its definition of “kidnap” in a prosecution under § 875(b); or a single case involving a § 875(b) charge involving an 9 Section 1201 applies to “[w]hoever unlawfully seizes, confines, inveigles, decoys, kidnaps, abducts, or carries away and holds for ransom or reward or otherwise any person, except in the case of a minor by the parent thereof, when” one of the various jurisdictional hooks is satisfied. (emphasis added). 10 The government ignores that § 875(b) uses the undefined term “kidnap,” which itself could contain exclusions. For example, the Sixth Circuit has concluded that a father could not be charged under § 875(c) (identical to § 875(b) except there is no intent-to-extort requirement) because he could not “legally be charged with kidnapping under state or federal law,” meaning his threat to take his child was not a “threat to kidnap[.]” United States v. Landham, 251 F.3d 1072, 1081 (6th Cir. 2001). 16 intent to extort money based on a demand for child support or restoration of property sold as part of a divorce proceeding. Nor have we found any. Though Osipova did not challenge the district court’s and government’s interpretation of § 875(b)’s “kidnap” until her supplemental brief, we nonetheless review this interpretation. Osipova has asserted from the beginning that the government could not and did not prove that she communicated any threat to kidnap S.M. under the district court’s and government’s interpretation. See, e.g., Appellant’s App. at 214:24–217:24 (closing argument), 240–42 (motion for judgment of acquittal). And the government has contended that it could and did meet its burden to show that Osipova communicated such a threat. See, e.g., id. at 206:10–208:25 (closing statement); Br. for Appellee at 18–20. Thus, we have before us “a real case and controversy extending” to the issue whether the government produced sufficient evidence of § 875(b)’s “threat to kidnap” element11 to uphold Osipova’s convictions. U.S. Nat’l Bank of Or. v. Indep. Ins. Agents of Am., Inc., 508 U.S. 439, 446 (1993). And “[w]hen an issue or claim is properly before the court, the court is not limited to the particular legal theories advanced by the parties, but rather retains the independent power to identify and apply the proper construction of governing law.” Kamen v. Kemper Fin. Servs., Inc., 500 U.S. 90, 99 (1991) (citing Arcadia v. Ohio Power Co., 498 U.S. 73, 77 (1990)). Here, the meaning of “kidnap” under § 875(b) is 11 In conducting our sufficiency-of-the-evidence review, we must “determine whether a rational trier of fact could have found ‘the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.’” United States v. Winder, 557 F.3d 1129, 1137 (10th Cir. 2009) (quoting United States v. Bowen, 527 F.3d 1065, 1076 (10th Cir. 2008)). 17 “an issue ‘antecedent to . . . and ultimately dispositive of’ the dispute before” us, so we may consider it despite the parties’ failure to address it until we ordered supplemental briefing. U.S. Nat’l Bank of Or., 508 U.S. at 447 (omission in original) (quoting Arcadia, 498 U.S. at 77; and citing Cardinal Chem. Co. v. Morton Int’l, Inc., 508 U.S. 83, 88 n.9 (1993)). So we turn to determining whether the word “kidnap” as used in § 875(b) encompasses “international parental kidnapping” under § 1204. We begin our analysis by examining the plain text of § 875(a)–(c), § 1201, and § 1204 to interpret § 875’s “kidnap” “with a view to [its] place in the overall statutory scheme” and “in light of the purposes Congress sought to serve.” Been v. O.K. Indus., 495 F.3d 1217, 1227 (10th Cir. 2007) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). “[I]t’s a ‘fundamental canon of statutory construction’ that words generally should be ‘interpreted as taking their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning . . . at the time Congress enacted the statute.’” Wis. Cent. Ltd. v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2067, 2074 (2018) (omission in original) (quoting Perrin v. United States, 444 U.S. 37, 42 (1979)). But “where a federal criminal statute uses a common-law term of established meaning without otherwise defining it, the general practice is to give that term its common-law meaning,” Moskal v. United States, 498 U.S. 103, 114 (1990) (alteration, citation, and internal quotation marks omitted), unless Congress has instructed us otherwise, see Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 263 (1952). “The plain meaning of legislation should be conclusive, except in the ‘rare cases [in which] the literal application of a statute will produce a result demonstrably at odds 18 with the intentions of its drafters.’” United States v. Ron Pair Enters., 489 U.S. 235, 242 (1989) (alteration in original) (quoting Griffin v. Oceanic Contractors, Inc., 458 U.S. 564, 571 (1982)). We start with the language from the statute of the two disputed convictions: (a) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any demand or request for a ransom or reward for the release of any kidnapped person, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both. (b) Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both. (c) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. 18 U.S.C. § 875(a)–(c).12 The meaning of “kidnap” is not plain from this text alone. And Congress did not define “kidnap” in § 875 or in chapter 41, which houses § 875. “Kidnap” had an established meaning at common law. It “meant to take and carry away any person by force and against his will.” United States v. Marx, 485 F.2d 1179, 1186 (10th Cir. 1973); see also United States v. Young, 512 F.2d 321, 323 (4th Cir. 1975) (“[A]t common law ‘kidnap’ meant to take and carry a person by force and against his will.”). So unless Congress has instructed otherwise, we ascribe that meaning to § 875’s use of the term. See, e.g., Moskal, 498 U.S. at 114; Morissette, 12 We omit subsection (d) because it does not use the term “kidnap.” 19 342 U.S. at 263. We now turn to the legislative history and § 875’s role in the “overall statutory scheme” to determine if Congress has instructed otherwise.
The following discussion shows that Congress enacted as companions the predecessors and present versions of § 875, the extortionate-communications statute, and § 1201, the federal kidnapping statute. To demonstrate this, we first examine the history of § 1201’s and § 875’s enactments. Then, we use this history to help us interpret the statutory language Congress used in § 875. In 1932, Congress enacted 18 U.S.C. § 408a, the first statutory predecessor to § 1201, in response to the Lindbergh kidnapping.13 See Act of June 22, 1932, ch. 271, 47 Stat. 326 (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 408a) (current version at 18 U.S.C. § 1201); Chatwin v. United States, 326 U.S. 455, 463 (1946). As the Supreme Court observed: Kidnaping by that time had become an epidemic in the United States. Ruthless criminal bands utilized every known legal and scientific means to achieve their aims and to protect themselves. Victims were selected from among the wealthy with great care and study. Details of the seizures and detentions were fully and meticulously worked out in advance. Ransom was the usual motive. 13 On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., the son of the famous aviator, was stolen from his crib in his second-floor bedroom. See Lindbergh Kidnapping, FBI, https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/lindbergh-kidnapping (last visited Aug. 3, 2020). A search of the scene revealed, among other clues, a $50,000-ransom note and a broken ladder. Id. Two months and twelve ransom notes later, the baby’s body was found. Id. He apparently died the night he was kidnapped. Id.; see also Kidnapping and Trial, Minn. Historical Soc’y, https://www.mnhs.org/ lindbergh/learn/kidnapping (last viewed Aug. 3, 2020). 20 Chatwin, 326 U.S. at 462–63. So Congress enacted the Lindbergh Act “to cover every possible variety of kidnaping followed by interstate transportation,” id. at 463, and to provide a federal criminal remedy for the physical harm and violence involved in kidnapping for ransom, see, e.g., Amendments to the Federal Kidnaping Statute: Hearings on H.R. 4191 and H.R. 8722 Before the Subcomm. on Crime of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 93d Cong. 13, 20–21 (1974) (discussing the legislative history of the Lindbergh Act). The Act applied to “[w]hoever shall knowingly transport or cause to be transported, or aid or abet in transporting, in interstate or foreign commerce, any person who shall have been unlawfully seized, confined, inveigled, decoyed, kidnaped, abducted, or carried away by any means whatsoever and held for ransom or reward[.]” Act of June 22, 1932, ch. 271, 47 Stat. 326. This plain language leads us to two conclusions. First, that Congress adopted the common-law meaning of “kidnap” in using that single term in the Act. See Morissette, 342 U.S. at 263. This is because “kidnap” had an established meaning at common law and because Congress did not instruct us otherwise. See id. Moreover, the common-law meaning, “to take and carry away any person by force and against his will,” does not render any of the other delineated means superfluous. Marx, 485 F.2d at 1186; see also, e.g., TRW Inc. v. Andrews, 534 U.S. 19, 31 (2001) (“It is ‘a cardinal principle of statutory construction’ that ‘a statute ought, upon the whole, to be so construed that, if it can be prevented, no clause, sentence, or word shall be superfluous, void, or insignificant.’” (quoting Duncan v. Walker, 553 U.S. 167, 174 (2001))). 21 And second, though Congress used the common-law meaning of “kidnap” in the Act, its use of other culpable acts listed in § 408a’s verb string criminalized much more than common-law “kidnap.” See Act of June 22, 1932, ch. 271, 47 Stat. 326. Congress’s delineation of alternative means of establishing a single element of the § 408a offense shows that Congress considered any one of these means to constitute, in a more general sense, a “kidnapped person.” See United States v. Gillis, 938 F.3d 1181, 1204 (11th Cir. 2019) (determining that § 1201(a) provides “several methods of violating the statute [that] are all factual means of accomplishing ‘kidnapping’ rather than separate elements creating several distinct kidnapping offenses” (citations omitted)). This conclusion is plain from the text. But we gain further support from Congress’s having titled § 408a “Kidnaped persons; transportation, etc., of persons unlawfully detained,” 18 U.S.C. § 408a (1934) (bold removed); referring to it as “the kidnaping bill,” 75 Cong. Rec. 13,282 (1932); and enacting it to enable the apprehension of kidnappers who take their victims across state lines, 75 Cong. Rec. 13,284 (1932). See also 78 Cong. Rec. 8,127 (1934) (referring to § 408a as “the act forbidding the transportation of kidnaped persons in interstate commerce”); Chatwin, 326 U.S. at 463 (recognizing that Congress used “[c]omprehensive language . . . to cover every possible variety of kidnaping followed by interstate transportation”). Though a prosecutor might have thought this first delineation of “kidnapped person” expansive enough to cover parental kidnappings, Congress’s hinging the crime on being held for ransom or reward would have compromised that notion. See United States v. Acevedo, 824 F.3d 179, 185 (1st Cir. 2016) (noting that “a parent 22 abscond[ing] across state lines with his child in violation of a custody order” is a type of kidnapping “inherently unlikely to involve ransoms”); United States v. Boettcher, 780 F.2d 435, 436 (4th Cir. 1985) (“The obvious purpose of such restricted scope for that crime (‘for reward or ransom’) was to eliminate from the statute’s coverage the kidnaping, conspiracy to kidnap or aiding and abetting in the kidnaping by a parent of his or her child.”). Further, in the House debate over the Act, a Representative recognized this possibility: “I do not believe it is intended or desired to include punishment for kidnaping in cases where a mother or a father has taken a child away where there has been a divorce, or something of that kind. I hope an amendment providing for this will be included in the bill.” 75 Cong. Rec. at 13,286 (1932). He remarked that the Act was meant “to provide the severest punishment for people who kidnap and carry off people from one State to another for ransom, for money.” Id. at 13,296. He opined, “There is not anybody who would want to send a parent to the penitentiary for taking possession of his or her own child, even though the order of the court was violated and it was a technical kidnaping.” Id. In 1934, apparently to eliminate any possibility of such a prosecution, Congress amended the Act. After “and held for ransom or reward,” Congress added an exclusion: “or otherwise, except, in the case of a minor, by a parent thereof[.]”14 14 The House Committee on the Judiciary recommended adding this language, because it “will extend Federal jurisdiction under the act to persons who have been kidnaped and held, not only for reward, but for any other reason, except that a kidnaping by a parent of his child is specifically exempted.” H.R. Rep. No. 1457, at 2 (1934). 23 Act of May 18, 1934, ch. 301, 48 Stat. 781 (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 408a (1934) (current version at 18 U.S.C. § 120115); see also Gooch v. United States, 297 U.S. 124, 129 (1936) (noting the exclusion “indicate[s] legislative understanding that,” without it, “a parent, who carried his child away because of affection, might subject himself to condemnation of the statute” (citation omitted)). That same day, Congress enacted a new statute—the first statutory predecessor to § 875—applying to whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation any money or other thing of value, shall transmit in interstate commerce, by any means whatsoever, any threat (1) to injure the person, property, or reputation of any person, or (2) to kidnap any person, or (3) to accuse any person of a crime, or (4) containing any demand or request for a ransom or reward for the release of any kidnaped person[.] Act of May 18, 1934, ch. 300, 48 Stat. 781 (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 408d (1934)) (current version at 18 U.S.C. § 875). The House considered and passed in succession both statutes on the same day. See 78 Cong. Rec. 8,127–28 (1934). In fact, the House considered them “kindred bills, known as the ‘crime bills[.]’” Id. at 8,775 (discussing, among other bills, S. 2252, “to amend the act forbidding the transportation of kidnaped persons in interstate commerce,” and S. 2249, the extortionate-communications bill). And Congress designed § 408d “to bolster up the Patterson Act passed in 1932, which makes it a Federal offense to transmit threats through the mail with intent to extort 15 Congress amended § 1201 in 1993 to define “parent”: “As used in this section, the term ‘parent’ does not include a person whose parental rights with respect to the victim of an offense under this section have been terminated by a final court order.” Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Pub. L. No. 103-322, sec. 320924, 108 Stat. 1796, 2131 (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 1201(h)). 24 any money or other thing of value” and extended federal control “over kidnapers.” Id. at 6,855. Congress’s considering § 408d contemporaneously with the parentalkidnapping exclusion and designing § 408d as a companion to § 408a underscores that Congress intended § 408d’s “kidnap” to match the broad concept of kidnapping it criminalized in § 408a. See United States v. Jackson, 180 F.3d 55, 70 (2d Cir.), reh’g granted on other grounds, 196 F.3d 383 (2d Cir. 1999) (“Given Congress’s contemporaneous consideration of the predecessors of § 875(d) and the Hobbs Act, both of which focused on extortion, we infer that Congress’s concept of extortion was the same with respect to both statutes.”). Moreover, in 1948, when Congress revised Title 18 and moved § 408a to § 1201 and § 408d to § 875, Congress did not substantively change the statutes. See H.R. Rep. No. 152, at A67, A89–90 (1945). So, like § 408a and § 408d, § 1201 and § 875 are companions. We thus conclude that Congress intended “kidnap” in § 875 to reference the broader definition of “kidnap”16 it created in § 1201 and did not use the term in its 16 Congress initially focused the Lindbergh Act on the transportation of a kidnap victim in interstate or foreign commerce. But in 1972, Congress amended the Act to make the kidnap itself the focus. See Amendments to the Federal Kidnaping Statute: Hearings on H.R. 4191 and H.R. 8722 Before the Subcomm. on Crime of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 93d Cong. 29 (1974). In considering this amendment, Congress recognized that the term “kidnap[] has acquired a general meaning sufficient to encompass the operative term ‘seizes’, ‘confines’, etc.” Id. at 30 (quoting H. Rep. 92-1208, at 16 (1972)). But Congress nonetheless retained these operative terms. Id. These terms, combined with the intent “for ransom or reward or otherwise . . . , except in the case of a minor by the parent thereof,” have triggered the “kidnap” element of the Lindbergh Act since 1934, regardless of the Act’s focus. See 18 U.S.C. § 1201 (1972); 18 U.S.C. § 408a (1934); see also Gillis, 938 F.3d at 1203–04 (determining that this language provides several means of accomplishing “kidnapping”). 25 strict, common-law sense.17 As companion statutes, § 875 and § 1201 must work together and not hinder the other. Imputing only the common-law definition of “kidnap” to § 875 as we did to “kidnap” in § 1201’s verb string would undermine the work Congress put into broadening the crime in § 1201. So, instead, § 875’s “kidnap” must incorporate Congress’s generalized “kidnap” set out in § 1201’s verb string. And, as seen, the plain language and legislative history of § 1201 shows Congress’s intent to exclude parents from federal criminal sanctions for kidnapping and for threatening to kidnap their children.18 See also Boettcher, 780 F.2d at 437 (stating that, in enacting § 1201, “Congress never intended to expose parents kidnaping their own minor child to criminal sanctions”). The same must hold true for § 875’s “kidnap.” 17 We note that even had Congress adopted the common-law definition, Osipova’s messages would not have communicated a threat to kidnap, because she did not threaten to take S.M. against her will. When Osipova sent the messages, she had already taken S.M. to Russia and thus could not have threatened to take and carry away S.M. against S.M.’s will. Nor does anything indicate that Osipova could or did forcefully remove the fourteen-month-old S.M. to Russia. 18 The government asserts that Congress’s reference to § 1201 in 18 U.S.C. § 878 (another threat/extortion statute) and not in § 875 indicates Congress did not intend to include § 1201’s parental-kidnapping exception in § 875. We see no such intent. Section 878 also references two other statutes to encompass those that, like § 1201, protect foreign officials, official guests, and internationally protected persons. These references easily delineate all the conduct Congress wanted § 878 to cover. Such references would not benefit the less-expansive § 875, especially because Congress enacted its predecessor as a companion to the Lindbergh Act. 26 B. Section 875 Does Not Incorporate § 1204’s or the Government’s Definitions of International Parental Kidnapping. In 1993, Congress passed the International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act of 1993, a statute meant “to deter the removal of children from the United States to foreign countries in order to obstruct parental rights.” See H.R. Rep. 103-390, at 1 (1993). This statute created a new federal felony offense to work in tandem with the Hague Convention on International Parental Child Abduction and to make it easier for a left-behind parent to obtain the abducted child’s return from countries that are not signatories to the Convention. Id. at 3. But it left the Convention as “the option of first choice.” Id. at 5. The statute covers “[w]hoever removes a child from the United States, or attempts to do so, or retains a child (who has been in the United States) outside the United States with intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of parental rights[.]” § 1204(a).19 This definition of “international parental kidnapping” (as the government expanded in the indictment to include “continuing to retain”20) is what the government seeks to transplant into § 875(b)’s “threat to kidnap” element. But, as shown in the last section, injecting the separate crime of “international parental kidnapping” into § 875(b)’s “kidnap” would unmoor the federal crime of kidnapping from its understood meaning since 1934 when Congress specifically excluded 19 We note that, unlike § 1201, § 1204 uses the word “kidnap” only in its title, not in its text, though both statutes are in the kidnap portion of the Code. 20 Section 1204 does not say “continue to retain.” The government makes no attempt to justify its revision of the statute to produce its definition of “kidnap.” 27 parental kidnapping.21 See supra Section III.A. And incorporating § 1204(a)’s definition of “international parental kidnapping (let alone the government’s expanded definition) into § 875(b)’s use of “kidnap” would lead to absurd results. First, we read § 1204 as providing three means of accomplishing “international parental kidnapping” and not three elements, namely, the means of (1) removal, (2) attempted removal, and (3) retention. See United States v. Nixon, 901 F.3d 918, 921 (7th Cir. 2018) (agreeing with the district court’s conclusion that “§ 1204(a) states multiple ways of committing a single crime”).22 At the start of the trial, Osipova’s counsel admitted that Osipova had illegally removed S.M. to Russia. Appellant’s App. at 75:12–16 (“The evidence in this case will show that on April the 2nd of 2014, [Osipova] took her and Mr. Mobley’s minor child [S.M.] outside of the United States and retained the child outside of the United States, in Russia, where she is from, in violation of a court order.”). Thus, as we explain next, the jury had no 21 The government asserts that we should not “disturb [our] previous conclusion that the common usage of ‘kidnapping’ would encompass the taking of children without the consent of the other parent.” Appellee Suppl. Resp. Br. at 9 (citing Anderson v. Cramlet, 789 F.2d 840, 844 (10th Cir. 1986)). But it cites Anderson, a defamation case that examined the plain (not the legal) meaning of “kidnapping” and acknowledged that the term has “assumed a non-legal connotation” “in the area of child custody[.]” 789 F.2d at 844. We thus do not find Anderson illuminating for interpreting the meaning of § 875(b)’s “kidnap.” And even if we adopted Anderson’s definition of kidnap for § 875(b)’s purposes, we would still vacate Osipova’s § 875(b) convictions because her messages did not threaten to take S.M. without Mobley’s consent—she already had S.M. when she sent the messages. See id. 22 In reaching the conclusion that § 1204(a) provides three means of a single crime, Judge Easterbrook followed the Supreme Court’s framework given in Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243 (2016). 28 reason to consider whether Osipova had violated § 1204(a) by a second means, that is, by unlawfully retaining S.M. in Russia. We interpret the retention means of the international-parental-kidnapping offense as mapping “retention” as used in the Hague Convention, which applies when a parent holds the child beyond the time the left-behind parent was legally entitled to the child’s return. See, e.g., de Silva v. Pitts, 481 F.3d 1279, 1282, 1285 (10th Cir. 2007) (Hague Convention case analyzing a father’s retention of his son past the agreed-to summer visit); Elisa Pérez-Vera, Explanatory Report, in 3 Acts and Documents of the Fourteenth Session, Child Abduction 426, 458–59 ¶ 108 (1980) (stating that the time limit begins to run in retention cases on the date “on which the child ought to have been returned to its custodians or on which the holder of the right of custody refused to agree to an extension of the child’s stay”). Thus, the “retains a child” means of international-parental-kidnapping is not in play when the parties agree that a parent has unlawfully removed a child from the United States. Second, kidnapping is a unitary crime that continues until the victim is free. United States v. Rodriguez-Moreno, 526 U.S. 275, 281 (1999). It makes no sense to treat a “threat to kidnap,” which implies that the kidnapping has not yet occurred, as a “threat to continue to retain,” which means the kidnapping has happened and is ongoing. So the government’s definition is at odds with § 875(b)’s plain language. An ongoing kidnapping, even one under § 1201, fits only under § 875(a). Third, if we accepted the government’s definition of § 875(b) “kidnap” as “continuing to retain [a person] outside of the United States with the intent to 29 obstruct the lawful exercise of parental rights,” Appellant’s App. at 187:19–21, we would render § 875(a) superfluous, at least in this instance. As noted, § 875(a) covers communications that contain “any demand or request for a ransom or reward for the release of any kidnapped person[.]” If a threat to continue to retain one’s child absent receiving extorted money fits under § 875(b), then why have § 875(a)?23 We should avoid reading a statute in a way that would render Congress’s language superfluous. E.g., TRW Inc., 534 U.S. at 31. Finally, the statutes’ disparate penalties underscore the absurdity in adopting the government’s definition of “kidnap.” Section 875(b) provides that the defendant “shall be fined” or “imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.” This makes sense when read together with § 1201, which for completed kidnappings provides a more severe penalty. See § 1201 (providing for “imprisonment for any term of years or for life”). But this proportionality is lost when the government seeks to apply § 875(b) to § 1204, which caps any term of imprisonment at three years. We see no merit in the government’s position that Congress capped imprisonment for a parental kidnapping at three years but provided a twenty-year maximum under § 875(b) for merely threatening to commit that offense. This absurdity strengthens our conclusion 23 Obviously, the government could not prosecute under subsection (a), because no one could sensibly consider Osipova’s requests for child support for S.M. as a ransom for her release. But the unavailability of subsection (a) does not make subsection (b) available. As discussed, subsection (b) concerns threats to kidnap. We reject the government’s attempt to morph subsection (b) into something it is not—a hybrid of a threat to kidnap someone already kidnapped. 30 that Congress intended to exclude parental kidnapping from § 875(b)’s “threat to kidnap.” We thus conclude the government obtained the § 875(b) convictions against Osipova by using an invalid definition of “kidnap.” Because Osipova could not legally be charged for kidnapping under § 1201, the threat-to-kidnap element of § 875(b) is not met. Osipova’s convictions on counts 2 and 3 cannot stand; we vacate these convictions and remand for resentencing on count 1. IV. The Court’s E-Mail to Osipova’s Mother Does Not Require Recusal. Osipova argues that the district judge’s e-mail to her mother required his recusal, because it was an ex parte communication violating the Judicial Code of Conduct and evinced his bias against Osipova. The government contends that Osipova has waived this argument, because she invited any error by “repeatedly [seeking] to engage the trial court in ex parte communications.” Br. for Appellee at 24. We need not resolve the waiver issue, however, because Osipova’s disqualification argument fails on the merits. Further, “[w]e believe that it is especially appropriate to reach the merits of this issue because recusal-based arguments uniquely implicate the integrity of the justice system.” Wells, 873 F.3d at 1250 (citation omitted). We thus exercise our discretion to bypass the waiver issue and reach the merits of Osipova’s argument for recusal. Osipova moved for recusal under 28 U.S.C. § 455, which requires that a judge recuse from “any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned” or “[w]here he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party.” 31 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), (b)(1). “Section 455 establishes ‘an objective standard: disqualification is appropriate only where the reasonable person, were he to know all the circumstances, would harbor doubts about the judge’s impartiality.’” Wells, 873 F.3d at 1251 (quoting Mathis, 787 F.3d at 1310). “‘In conducting this review, we must ask how these facts would appear to a well-informed, thoughtful and objective observer,’ who is ‘an average member of the public,’ not a ‘hypersensitive, cynical, and suspicious person.’” Id. (quoting Mathis, 787 F.3d at 1310). Though judges “have a strong duty to recuse when appropriate,” they also have “a strong duty to sit,” and § 455 must not be so broadly construed as to make recusal mandated “upon the merest unsubstantiated suggestion of personal bias or prejudice.” Id. (citation and internal quotation mark omitted). The judge here did not exercise his best judgment in e-mailing Osipova’s mother that her daughter’s sentence would depend on whether the two girls were back in the United States before the sentencing hearing. But considering the mother’s previous, numerous communications to the judge and the e-mail’s content, an objective observer would likely not reasonably question the judge’s impartiality. The e-mail communicated four things: (1) the judge had received Osipova’s letter about which her mother had inquired, (2) the date set for sentencing, (3) an inference that the girls’ return would lighten Osipova’s sentence, and (4) the judge could not modify Osipova’s sentence after he imposed it. Contrary to Osipova’s assertions, this e-mail did not show that the judge had determined a specific sentence. The e-mail also did not communicate any information that Osipova did not already know. So the 32 e-mail provides no reasonable basis for questioning the judge’s impartiality. We thus affirm the court’s denial of Osipova’s motion to disqualify. V. Mobley’s Attorney’s Fees Are Not Recoverable in Restitution. Finally, Osipova argues that Mobley’s attorney’s fees were not related to the government’s investigation or prosecution and, thus, were not recoverable under 18 U.S.C. § 3663. Section 3663 authorizes a district court to order that the defendant make restitution to any victim of her offense. See § 3663(a)(1)(A). The order may, “in any case, reimburse the victim for lost income and necessary child care, transportation, and other expenses related to participation in the investigation or prosecution of the offense or attendance at proceedings related to the offense[.]” § 3663(b)(4). Here, the district court awarded Mobley $18,100 in restitution for attorney’s fees incurred in “his efforts to retrieve the children from Russia, which were substantially frustrated by the defendant’s establishment (after her arrest) of a guardianship in Russia.”24 Br. for Appellee at 33. The court concluded that these fees “are directly related to the offense of conviction.” Appellee’s Suppl. App. vol. I at 174:16–17. And the government maintains that the fees “were directly related to the defendant’s criminal conduct and continuing obstruction” in using “the Russian courts to thwart repatriation of the children.” Br. for Appellee at 34. 24 Osipova does not dispute how Mobley incurred these attorney’s fees. 33 But § 3663 does not authorize restitution for all expenses incurred by a victim that are “directly related to” the defendant’s offense. Section 3663 delineates specific authorizations for restitution orders and the one relied on here, subsection (b)(4), is not met by expenses that are merely “related to” the offense. More is required: the expenses must be “related to participation in the investigation or prosecution of the offense or attendance at proceedings related to the offense[.]” § 3663(b)(4) (emphasis added). The terms “investigation,” “prosecution,” and “proceedings” are limited to the government’s investigation, the government’s criminal prosecution, and criminal proceedings. Lagos v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1684, 1688 (2018).25 And, to qualify for restitution, the expenses must be “caused by the specific conduct 25 Lagos interpreted the meaning of these terms as used in 18 U.S.C. § 3663A(b)(4), which requires reimbursement “for lost income and necessary child care, transportation, and other expenses incurred during participation in the investigation or prosecution of the offense or attendance at proceedings related to the offense.” Though § 3663(b)(4) is discretionary and uses “related to” where the mandatory § 3663A(b)(4) uses “incurred during,” the Court’s textual analysis of § 3663A(b)(4) in Lagos applies equally to § 3663(b)(4). The Court concluded “investigation” refers to government investigations because the word “is directly linked by the word ‘or’ to the word ‘prosecution,’ with which it shares the article ‘the’”—a linkage that is also present in § 3663(b)(4). 138 S. Ct. at 1688; see § 3663(b)(4) (“the investigation or prosecution”). The Court applied “[a] similar line of reasoning” to conclude “that the immediately following reference to ‘proceedings’ also refers to criminal proceedings in particular,” reasoning that also applies to § 3663(b)(4)’s identical language. 138 S. Ct. at 1688; see § 3663(b)(4) (“or attendance at proceedings”). Moreover, the same awkwardness the Court found in interpreting “‘participation’ to refer to a victim’s role in its own private investigation, and the word ‘attendance’ to refer to a victim’s role as a party in noncriminal court proceedings” applies equally to § 3663(b)(4). 138 S. Ct. at 1688; see § 3663(b)(4) (also using “participation in the investigation” and “attendance at proceedings”). 34 that is the basis of the offense of conviction.” Hughey v. United States, 495 U.S. 411, 413 (1990). The attorney’s fees that Mobley incurred do not satisfy § 3663(b)(4)’s requirements. The government has presented no evidence that Mobley’s attorney’s fees were related to his participation in its investigation or prosecution of Osipova. Instead, the government contends that the fees were the result of Mobley’s attempt to bring his daughters back to the United States. There is no evidence that the government directed or sanctioned this action. In fact, the government admitted at oral argument that it never asked Mobley to incur these fees and that it was engaged with the Department of State in its own attempt to secure the girls’ return. Moreover, the girls’ return had no impact on the government’s investigation or prosecution of Osipova.26 Making the girls “whole” by reuniting them with a father they would consider a stranger was in no way “part and parcel” to the criminal prosecution, as the government contends. Oral Arg. at 30:26–55. So Mobley’s attempt to secure the 26 The government states that Mobley’s attorney’s fees “were incurred ‘during participation in the . . . prosecution of the offense’” because “[l]ocating and (hopefully) retrieving the children was a central part of the government’s investigation and prosecution effort.” Br. for Appellee at 36 (omission in original). But Mobley already knew where the girls were—Russia—so he did not need to incur attorney’s fees to locate them. Further, the girls’ return to the United States was not necessary for the prosecution to proceed, so the government’s assertion that their return was “central” to its effort is questionable. Finally, that the statute allows for childcare expenses incurred during participation in the investigation or prosecution of the offense but not Mobley’s attorney’s fees does not “make no sense” or “discredit the judicial system,” because the latter fees were not incurred during such participation as required by the statute (while the former would be). Id. at 37; see § 3663(b)(4). 35 return of his daughters did not assist the government in its investigation or prosecution of Osipova. This means Mobley’s attorney’s fees are not recoverable under subsection (b)(4). Moreover, Mobley’s loss caused by Osipova’s conduct underlying her conviction was the loss of his daughters. Mobley incurred attorney’s fees only to try to recover his loss, i.e., obtain the return of his daughters. In United States v. Diamond, 969 F.2d 961, 968 (10th Cir. 1992), we opined that “[i]n the absence of specific statutory authority for an award of attorney’s fees and expenses, we believe Hughey is decisive as it limits the substantive boundaries of restitution under the [statute] to the specific conduct underlying the offense of conviction.” (citing Hughey, 495 U.S. at 413). “Expenses generated in recovering a victim’s losses, therefore, generally are too far removed from the underlying criminal conduct to form the basis of a restitution order.” Id. In United States v. Patty, 992 F.2d 1045, 1049 (10th Cir. 1993), we “construe[d] Diamond as holding that attorney fees incurred by the victim to recover his property are not directly related to the defendant’s criminal conduct and thus are not recoverable in restitution.” (citation omitted). But we recognized that “[t]here may be a situation . . . where attorney fees under the [Victim Witness Protection Act] are directly related to a defendant’s criminal conduct because they were ‘sustained by [the] victim as a result of the offense.’” Id. (third alteration in original) (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 3664). Though we decided Diamond and Patty before Congress enacted subsection (b)(4) in 1994, we 36 still find their logic applicable here, where § 3664(b)(4) does not expressly authorize granting Mobley restitution for his attorney’s fees. The government asserts § 3664(b)(4) does authorize restitution for Mobley’s attorney’s fees and for support cites an international-parental-kidnapping case that allowed similar fees, United States v. Cummings, 281 F.3d 1046 (9th Cir. 2002). In Cummings, the Ninth Circuit allowed restitution for attorney’s fees incurred in the left-behind mother’s attempt to recover custody of her children, concluding that the “attorney’s fees are expenses related to the government’s investigation and prosecution of Cummings for wrongfully retaining his children in a foreign country, thereby interfering with their mother’s parental rights.” 281 F.3d at 1052. The court determined that, under its precedent, the “incurred attorney’s fees are [not] ‘wholly separate’ from the government’s prosecution of Cummings.” Id. at 1053. But as discussed, § 3663(b)(4) requires participation in the prosecution, not merely a relationship to it. So while we agree that the girls’ return is related to the international-parental-kidnapping offense, we do not see how seeking their return equates to participation in the investigation or prosecution of the offense. The government already knew the girls were in Russia and did not need to return them to Mobley’s custody to obtain a conviction against Osipova. So, with no evidence that Mobley’s attorney’s fees were “related to participation in the investigation or prosecution of the offense,” § 3663(b)(4), we decline to reach the same conclusion as the Ninth Circuit’s in Cummings. We thus conclude that the district court’s restitution order was unauthorized by law and must be vacated. 37