Opinion ID: 3040378
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Application of the St. Cyr/Landgraf Test

Text: The government points to four sources to support its contention that Congress intended unambiguously for the DNA Act to apply to offenders who committed qualifying offenses prior to the Act’s passage. First, the Act states that the Probation Office “shall collect a DNA sample from each [individual on release, parole, or probation] who is, or has been, convicted of a qualifying Federal offense . . . .” Pub. L. No. 106546 (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 14135a(a)(2)). The government UNITED STATES v. REYNARD 397 contends that because a portion of the language is cast in the past tense, it covers individuals, like Reynard, who are now on supervised release, but who “ha[ve] been” convicted of a qualifying offense.4 Second, the Act also provides that a DNA sample will be collected “from each individual in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons who is, or has been, convicted of a qualifying Federal offense.” Id. § 14135a(a)(1) (emphasis added). Third, the government contends that a review of the DNA Act’s legislative history emphasizes that the Act was intended to apply retroactively.5 Finally, as noted by the government, the Congressional Budget Office’s (“CBO”) cost estimate of the DNA Act observed that “there are roughly 6,000 such persons now and that there would be another 2,000 persons incarcerated in fiscal year 2001 and in each year thereafter.” The government contends that the fact that the CBO included current inmates in its calculation is further evidence that Congress intended retroactive application of the DNA Act. [3] Although the statutory provisions and legislative history discussed above suggest that Congress may have intended the 4 The government also asserts that the fact that this subsection applies to “parolees” necessarily demonstrates a retroactive intent because federal parole was abolished over fifteen years before in the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. 5 Congress noted that the Act would serve to fill a significant gap in CODIS by including all qualifying offenders who have committed a qualifying offense at any time in the past. See 146 Cong. Rec. H8572-01, H8576 (daily ed. Oct. 2, 2000) (“One glaring omission in the law that authorized CODIS is that it did not authorize the taking of DNA samples from persons convicted of Federal offenses . . . .” ) (statement of Rep. Canady); 146 Cong. Rec. S11645-02, S11647 (“[F]or some inexplicable reason, we do not collect samples from Federal . . . offenders. We thought we already closed this loophole through 1996 legislation . . . but Federal officials claim more express authority is necessary.”) (statement by Sen. Kohl); H.R. Rep. 106-900(I), at 8 (“[The DNA Act] addresses . . . the absence of legal authority for DNA samples to be collected from persons convicted of Federal crimes . . . .”). 398 UNITED STATES v. REYNARD DNA Act to apply retroactively, the district court correctly determined that Congress failed to meet the high standard of clear and unambiguous expression of intent. See Reynard, 220 F. Supp. 2d at 1149 (holding that “the text and legislative history of the DNA Act are not so clear that [they] could sustain only one interpretation” (internal quotations and citations omitted)). For example, the plain language of the DNA Act does not clarify the extent to which the Act applies. While the DNA Act (42 U.S.C. §§ 14135a(a)(1) and (2)) expressly apply to a person who “has been” convicted of a qualifying offense, this language does not demonstrate that Congress “affirmatively considered the potential unfairness of retroactive application and determined that it is an acceptable price to pay for the countervailing benefits.” Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 272-73. In addition, although Congress may have passed the DNA Act to fill “gaps” in CODIS, it does not necessarily follow that the Act was intended to apply retroactively. In fact, as the district court reasonably noted, “congressional silence on the retroactivity or non-retroactivity of the DNA Act is significant in itself.” Reynard, 220 F. Supp. 2d at 1150; see also CastroCortez v. Ashcroft, 239 F.3d 1037, 1052 (9th Cir. 2001) (“Congressional silence is instructive”), abrogated on other grounds by Fernandez-Vargas v. Gonzales, 126 S. Ct. 2422 (2006). Finally, although the CBO report certainly provides support for construing the DNA Act to be retroactive, it can hardly be deemed conclusive evidence of Congress’s intent — particularly, in light of the absence of clear corroborating evidence in the legislative history. [4] Therefore, although the DNA Act’s text and legislative history suggest that it was intended to apply retroactively, the existence of plausible alternatives preclude us from finding the clear and unambiguous intent necessary to satisfy this first St. Cyr/Landgraf step. See United States v. Nordic Vill., Inc., 503 U.S. 30, 34-37 (1992) (the existence of any “plausible” alternative interpretations of statutory language necessarily UNITED STATES v. REYNARD 399 precludes that language from qualifying as an “unambiguous” expression). Accordingly, we must proceed to the second step.
[5] We must next determine whether application of the statute would have a retroactive effect within the meaning of Landgraf and consequently violate Reynard’s due process rights. See Jimenez-Angeles v. Ashcroft, 291 F.3d 594, 601 (9th Cir. 2002) (citing Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 280). A retroactive effect is one that (1) impairs rights Reynard possessed when he acted, (2) increases Reynard’s liability for past conduct, or (3) imposes new duties with respect to transactions already completed. See Landgraf, 511 U.S. at 280. A statute that has such a retroactive effect cannot be applied to the litigant before the court. See United States v. Hovsepian, 359 F.3d 1144, 1156 (9th Cir. 2004); Jimenez-Angeles, 291 F.3d at 601. [6] Addressing the third Landgraf category, the district court recognized that the DNA Act imposes a “duty” on Reynard to submit to the physical intrusion of blood extraction and also creates a “disability” by incorporating his DNA information in a nationwide database. Reynard, 220 F. Supp. 2d at 1153. However, the district court reasoned that this “duty” was not new for purposes of its retroactivity analysis because Reynard was warned at his supervised release hearing that he was subject to a broad duty to “[s]ubmit to a search of person, property, residence, abode or vehicle at a reasonable time and in a reasonable manner by the Probation Officer.” Id. Although Reynard’s duty to submit to a search may have not been clearly defined at the time to include blood extraction, he was aware that the terms of supervised release could be modified in the future. See 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e)(2) (authorizing a court to “modify, reduce, or enlarge the conditions of supervised release at any time prior to the expiration or termination of the terms of supervised release”). 400 UNITED STATES v. REYNARD Further, any “disability” created by operation of the DNA Act is minimal and does not upset any reliance interest that Reynard may have had. As the district court noted, DNA samples in CODIS are composed of genetic markers (known as “junk sites”) which “are purposely selected because they are not associated with any known genetic trait.” Reynard, 220 F. Supp. 2d at 1152 (citing H.R. Rep. 106-900(I), at 26). [7] Moreover, the legislative history of the DNA Act suggests that federal defendants in October of 1998, when Reynard pleaded guilty, were not acutely aware of any nonobligation to provide a DNA sample because a federal law already existed by which Congress attempted to create such an obligation.6 Accordingly, the Act’s legislative history undermines the proposition that, in 1998, federal offenders pleaded guilty with an expectation that they would not have to contribute DNA to CODIS because, at that time, federal law expressly authorized the FBI to expand CODIS by including DNA samples from all such federal offenders. Accordingly, Reynard did not have a settled expectation that he would not have to submit to DNA extraction. Reynard’s primary challenge is to the constitutionality of such a search (the constitutionality of which was upheld in Kincade, 379 F.3d 813, and reaffirmed in Hugs, 384 F.3d at 769), but this argument does not defeat the government’s con- 6 In October 1998, DOJ believed that AEDPA section 811(a)(2) continued to authorize the FBI to include DNA samples from all federal offenders in the CODIS index. See Reynard, 220 F. Supp. 2d at 1155. Two months later, in December 1998, the FBI requested Congress to enact more explicit statutory authority to allow the FBI to take DNA samples from federal offenders for inclusion into CODIS. See H.R. Rep. No. 106900(I). Thus, in October 1998, when Reynard pleaded guilty to robbery, federal law appeared to grant the FBI authority to collect a DNA sample from Reynard, even though DOJ believed that Congress had not conferred sufficient authority to do so. UNITED STATES v. REYNARD 401 tention that the DNA extraction falls within the scope of Reynard’s 1998 duty to submit to a search.7 [8] Thus, in analyzing the second St. Cyr/Landgraf step, the district court correctly concluded that the DNA Act did not have an impermissibly retroactive effect on Reynard. See Reynard, 220 F. Supp. 2d at 1157.