Opinion ID: 199492
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Hyde Amendment Legal Standard

Text: 26 Congress enacted the Hyde Amendment in 1997 in response to perceived instances of prosecutorial abuse by the United States. See United States v. Gilbert, 198 F.3d 1293, 1299-1303 (11th Cir. 1999) (reviewing legislative history). The purpose of the Amendment was to allow defendants to recover attorney's fees and costs in cases of prosecutorial misconduct. Id. The provision provides that a district court may award attorneys' fees and other costs to a prevailing defendant where the court finds that the position of the United States was vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith, unless the court finds that special circumstances make such an award unjust. Such awards shall be granted pursuant to the procedures and limitations (but not the burden of proof) provided for an award under [the Equal Access to Justice Act] . . . . 111 Stat. at 2519. 27 The Hyde Amendment was patterned after the Equal Access to Justice Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 2412, which provides for an award of attorney's fees against the United States in civil cases. The Hyde Amendment differs in at least two important respects. First, it raises the standard for awarding fees. The Hyde Amendment allows recovery by prevailing criminal defendants only where the position of the United States was vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith, in contrast to the EAJA, which authorizes an award to a prevailing civil party in any case where the position of the United States was not substantially justified, see 28 U.S.C. §§ 2412(d)(1)(A). Indeed, the legislative history of the Hyde Amendment shows that in drafting the provision, Congress considered and rejected as too easily met both the not substantially justified standard of the EAJA and a standard (modeled after the Firearms Owners' Protection Act of 1986, see 18 U.S.C. §§ 924(d)(2)(B)) which would have awarded fees, inter alia, where the United States' position was without foundation. See Gilbert, 198 F.3d at 1301-02. Second, unlike the EAJA, the Hyde Amendment places the burden of proof on the defendant to demonstrate that the government's position was vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith. See id. 28 In construing and applying statutory terms, we begin by examining the language of the statute itself. See, e.g., Bailey v. United States, 516 U.S. 137, 144 (1995). The words vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith are not defined in the statute. In such circumstances, courts typically read statutory terms to convey their ordinary meaning, see, e.g., Gilbert, 198 F.3d at 1298 (citing Chapman v. United States, 500 U.S. 453, 462 (1991)), including as reflected in dictionary definitions, see, e.g., Buckhannon Bd. & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dep't of Health & Human Servs., U.S. ---, 121 S. Ct. 1835, 1839 (2001) (relying on definition of prevailing party in Black's Law Dictionary); id. at 1846 (Scalia, J., concurring). Black's Law Dictionary defines the term vexatious -- the term at issue in this case -- to mean without reasonable or probable cause or excuse; harassing; annoying. Black's Law Dictionary 1559 (7th ed. 1999). It further defines vexatious suit to mean a lawsuit instituted maliciously and without good cause. Id. Standard English-language dictionaries give the term similar meaning. See, e.g., Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 2548 (3d ed. 1961) (defining vexatious to mean, inter alia, lacking justification and intended to harass); 19 Oxford English Dictionary 596 (2d ed. 1989) (defining vexatious for legal purposes as [i]nstituted without sufficient grounds for the purpose of causing trouble or annoyance to the defendant). 29 Circuit courts construing the Hyde Amendment have varied in interpreting the term vexatious. The Gilbert court, for instance, relies on a definition of vexatious as without reasonable or probable cause or excuse. See 198 F.3d at 1298-99; accord In re 1997 Grand Jury, 215 F.3d 430, 436 (4th Cir. 2000). By contrast, the Ninth Circuit, in United States v. Sherburne, 249 F.3d 1121 (9th Cir. 2001), held that a finding of vexatiousness under the Hyde Amendment requires both a determination that the prosecution was objectively deficient in that it lack[ed] merit and a finding that the prosecution possessed an element of maliciousness, or an intent to harass. Id. at 1126. The Sherburne court referred to the finding that the suit lacked merit as an objective component of vexatiousness and the finding that the suit was prosecuted with some subjective malice or intent to harass or annoy as a subjective component. Id. at 1127. Other courts have utilized a standard more amenable to the party seeking fees. See United States v. Holland, 34 F. Supp. 2d 346 (E.D. Va. 1999) (framing the inquiry as whether a reasonable prosecutor should have concluded that the applicable law and the available evidence were insufficient to prove the defendants' guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and, if so, was the continuation of the prosecution vexatious). 30 We hold that a determination that a prosecution was vexatious for the purposes of the Hyde Amendment requires both a showing that the criminal case was objectively deficient, in that it lacked either legal merit or factual foundation, and a showing that the government's conduct, when viewed objectively, manifests maliciousness or an intent to harass or annoy. Such a reading best comports with the language employed by Congress in the Amendment. This is especially so when considered in the context of Congress's concern to protect against prosecutorial misconduct while at the same time providing a sufficiently stringent standard to avoid undermining appropriate prosecutorial zeal. 31 The standard implied by the district court and advanced by the defendants -- that vexatious conduct can be shown simply by showing that the charges brought by the United States were ultimately determined to be without either evidentiary or legal foundation -- does not adequately account for Congress's efforts to limit Hyde Amendment awards to cases of affirmative prosecutorial misconduct rather than simply any prosecution which failed. As the Gilbert court notes, [i]n prosecuting crime, government attorneys are entitled to be zealous advocates of the law on behalf of their client, the people of the United States. While a prosecutor is not at liberty to strike foul blows, he may strike hard ones, and '[h]e may prosecute with earnestness and vigor -- indeed, he should do so.' 198 F.3d at 1303 (quoting Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88 (1935)). 32 The structure of the statute also militates against resting vexatiousness simply upon a finding that the prosecution lacked any credible evidence. It may be that if the government pursued a position so obviously wrong that no reasonable prosecutor could have supported it, the defendant would be entitled to a fee award under the Hyde Amendment. Without a finding of bad faith or improper motive, however, if the government pursues a prosecution without any foundation or basis for belief that it might prevail, such a prosecution would more appropriately be deemed frivolous than vexatious. Reading vexatious to encompass such a case would render it synonymous with frivolous, thus improperly rendering the term mere surplusage. 33 Finally, awarding fees upon a determination that the prosecution lacked sufficient evidence does not accord with the legislative history of the Hyde Amendment. In rejecting the not substantially justified formulation of the EAJA and the without foundation formulation of the Firearms Act, Congress sought narrow language meant to sanction and deter prosecutorial misconduct, not prosecutorial zealousness per se. Gilbert, 198 F.3d at 1304. 5 The Hyde Amendment's shifting of the burden of proof also reflects this concern. The alternative construction urged by the defendants would burden the United States with the threat of a large number of fee applications arising from circumstances quite different than those against which Congress sought to protect. 34 To make best sense of the statutory language and in light of the purposes embodied in the Hyde Amendment, we conclude that something more than simply an inadequate evidentiary foundation is required to demonstrate that the prosecution was vexatious within the meaning of the Hyde Amendment -- that is, some finding of malice or improper motivation is required. 6 After all, there is an alternate ground in the statute to award fees where an action is frivolous. In requiring that the government's conduct manifest malice or an intent to harass or annoy in order to be vexatious, however, we do not intend an inquiry into subjective intent, and we reject the approach of Sherburne to the extent it suggests that such attention to subjective motivations is required. Rather, the issue is whether the government's conduct, when viewed objectively, manifests, or is tantamount to, malice or an intent to harass or annoy. Cf. Braley v. Campbell, 832 F.2d 1504, 1512 (10th Cir. 1987) (en banc) (rejecting subjective intent standard as virtually impossible to apply for fee awards under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1927). 7 35