Opinion ID: 2971590
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Commerce Clause Jurisdiction

Text: Robinson argues that the bank robbery statute, 18 U.S.C. §2113(a), is unconstitutional on its face because it fails to establish the requisite nexus with interstate commerce. Moreover, it creates an improper presumption that the mere fact that deposits of a bank are insured by the FDIC creates a Commerce Clause nexus notwithstanding the fact that Congress has never identified the FDIC or banking as commerce per se. Because this is a question of law, the court should review the district court’s determination de novo. United States v. Salvo, 133 F.3d 943, 948 (6th Cir.1998). As other circuits have recognized, after the Supreme Court’s decisions in United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995) and Jones v. United States, 529 U.S. 848, 120 S.Ct. 1904, 146 L.Ed.2d 902 (2000), the argument that a specific federal statute exceeds its power under the Commerce Clause is “popular with criminal defendants these days.” United States v. Watts, 256 F.3d 630, 631 (7th Cir. 2001); United States v. Spinello, 265 F.3d 150, 153 (3d Cir. 2001). The Sixth Circuit has not specifically analyzed the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 2113; however, it has rejected numerous challenges to other federal criminal statutes when the defendant has claimed that the statute is an impermissible exercise of Congress’s commerce power. See United States v. Napier, 233 F.3d 394, 400 (6th Cir.2000) (firearms provision governing those under domestic-violence court orders, 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(8)); United States v. Smith, 182 F.3d 452, 456 (6th Cir.1999) (Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1951); United States v. Chesney, 86 F.3d 564, 568-70 (6th Cir.1996) (firearms provision governing convicted felons, 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1)). Other circuits have reviewed the constitutionality of §2113. The Seventh Circuit has squarely rejected an argument identical to Robinson’s that §2113 is unconstitutional on its face because it fails to establish the requisite nexus with interstate commerce. See Watts, 256 F.3d at 633-34. The Seventh Circuit found that “FDIC-insured banks are fundamental to the conduct of interstate commerce.” Id. at 633 (emphasis added). The court recognized that Congress created the FDIC to keep open the channels of trade and commercial exchange. Id. (relying on Weir v. United States, 92 F.2d 634, 636 (7th Cir. 1937)). Since FDIC-insured banks are “instrumentalities and channels of interstate commerce[,]” their protection from robbery is within Congress’s commerce power. Id.; see also Spinello, 265 F.3d at 157 (finding that bank robbery has “immediate, non-collateral, non-speculative effects on interstate commerce”); U.S. v. Harris, 108 F.3d 1107 (9th Cir. 1997) (“These financial institutions are instrumentalities and channels of interstate commerce and their regulation is well within Congress's Commerce Clause power. Section 2113 withstands constitutional analysis under Lopez.”). Robinson also argues that the statute creates an improper presumption that the mere fact that deposits of a bank are insured by the FDIC creates a Commerce Clause nexus. Both the Seventh and Third Circuits have addressed similar arguments and have found a sufficient Commerce Clause nexus present in §2113, independent of FDIC insurance coverage. See Watts, 256 F.3d at 633-34 (“Robberies of FDIC-insured banks thus have an interstate economic effect that is quite independent of the coverage that FDIC insurance extends to insured banks.”); Spinello, 265 F.3d at 156 (“A bank robber is obviously motivated by his or her own immediate economic gain – money is, of course, “economic” – and, wholly aside from whether FDIC insurance will ultimately kick in, the victim bank and its depositors suffer immediate economic losses as No. 02-2232 United States v. Robinson Page 10 well as the disruption to their respective abilities to engage in commerce, interstate or otherwise, by such activities as lending and purchasing assets.”). Therefore, the district court did not err in finding that the federal bank robbery statute is constitutional.