Opinion ID: 733238
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Constitutionality of the Schoolyard Statute

Text: 9 The appellants argue that The Drug Free School-Zones Act is unconstitutional because the sale of a controlled substance within 1,000 feet of a school does not substantially affect interstate commerce. The schoolyard statute, they say, is nothing more than an attempt by the Congress to exercise the police power reserved in the Constitution to the several States. 10 In Lopez, the Supreme Court delineated the three broad categories of activity that the Congress is authorized by the commerce clause to regulate: 11 First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce. Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities. Finally, Congress' commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce. 12 514 U.S. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1629 (citations omitted). The Court readily concluded that possession of a gun within 1,000 feet of a school, which the Congress had sought to prohibit in the Gun Free School-Zones Act, 21 U.S.C. § 922(q), falls into neither the first nor the second category. Id. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1630. The Court then turned to the closer question whether such possession substantially affects interstate commerce. 13 The Court noted that section 922(q) is a criminal statute that by its terms has nothing to do with commerce or any sort of economic enterprise, however broadly one might define those terms. 514 U.S. at ---- - ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1630-31. Nor was § 922(q) an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity. Id. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1631. It could not therefore be sustained under [the Court's line of] cases upholding regulations of activities that arise out of or are connected with a commercial transaction, which viewed in the aggregate, substantially affects interstate commerce. Id. Therefore, the commerce clause did not confer upon the Congress the power to enact the Gun Free School-Zones Act. 14 The appellants try to bring the Drug Free School-Zones Act within the scope of the Court's holding in Lopez by arguing that, although § 860(a) is concededly part of a larger scheme regulating the interstate commerce in drugs, it is not an essential part of that scheme. Zoning the traffic in controlled substances at the local level is not, the appellants maintain, an essential element of the larger scheme to control the interstate traffic in drugs. 15 The appellants err in thinking that Lopez controls this case. The Gun Free School-Zones Act punished simple possession of a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school; it did not purport to regulate commerce or anything incident thereto. The Drug Free School-Zones Act, in contrast, regulates distribution of, and possession with intent to distribute, illicit drugs within 1,000 feet of a school; it is not, therefore, a criminal statute that by its terms has nothing to do with 'commerce' or any sort of economic enterprise. Indeed, the schoolyard statute is directed specifically at a particular type of commercial activity. 16 Thomas argues that the prohibited activity is not commercial, at least insofar as the Act punishes possession with intent to distribute rather than actual distribution. This is like saying that warehousing goods prior to their final sale is not a part of interstate commerce [322 U.S.App.D.C. 397] --yet it, too, is a form of possession with intent to distribute. While mere possession, that is without intent to distribute, may be non-commercial and its prohibition in a federal statute would arguably implicate the rationale of Lopez, the fact remains that in the schoolyard statute the Congress punished possession only when it is incident to a commercial activity. 17 The appellants conclude by pointing out that the Congress made no findings in the course of passing the Drug Free School-Zones Act. The appellants err, however, in suggesting that this matters. Congressional findings are not a prerequisite to the exercise of an Article I power. See Lopez, 514 U.S. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1631, quoting Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294, 304, 85 S.Ct. 377, 383-84, 13 L.Ed.2d 290 (1964). We look to congressional findings only for aid in assessing the validity of the Congress's claim of authority. 18 As it happens, moreover, the Congress has made extensive findings regarding the relationship between local drugs sales and interstate drug traffic. The Congress concluded that the majority of the drugs that are distributed locally have traveled or will travel in interstate commerce. 21 U.S.C. § 801(3). Local distribution and possession of controlled substances, even when those substances have not traveled in interstate commerce, contribute to swelling the interstate traffic in such substances. Id. at § 801(4). Finally, because it is difficult to differentiate between controlled substances that have traveled in interstate commerce and those that have not, see id. at § 801(5), federal control over local distribution is essential to effective federal control over the interstate commerce in controlled substances. Id. at § 801(6). 19 These findings illuminate the close relationship between the local distribution of controlled substances and the interstate commerce in those substances. This provides ample support for the Congress's claim of authority to regulate that local distribution. See, for example, Minor v. United States, 396 U.S. 87, 98 n. 13, 90 S.Ct. 284, 289 n. 13, 24 L.Ed.2d 283 (1969); Reina v. United States, 364 U.S. 507, 512, 81 S.Ct. 260, 263-64, 5 L.Ed.2d 249 (1960); United States v. Owens, 996 F.2d 59, 61 (5th Cir.1993); United States v. Davis, 561 F.2d 1014, 1019-1020 (D.C.Cir.1977). 20 Because we accept that the Congress has the authority to regulate all of the commerce in controlled substances, there is no need to consider--much less any need for particularized findings to aid in considering--whether the Congress has the authority to regulate a portion of that commerce. The legislature has the discretion, absent some competing constitutional constraint, to decide when, how, and how much of an activity that affects interstate commerce to regulate. See, for example, Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat) 1, 197, 6 L.Ed. 23 (1824). 21