Opinion ID: 307677
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: jurisdiction of the offense.

Text: 32 The second issue raised questions the jurisdiction of the court below over the crimes charged. Appellants argue that the penal laws they are charged with violating have no extraterritorial application and therefore the court below was without jurisdiction. For the reasons delineated below, we disagree, find that the court below was possessed of the power to proceed, and affirm appellants' convictions. 33 As we will more fully note below, we find that there can be no serious doubt as to the extraterritorial applicability of the conspiracy section. We will therefore address this discussion only to the applicability of the theft section. 34 Basic to this discussion is the premise that Congress has the power to attach extraterritorial effect to its penal enactments. That power is implicit in the several rulings which are herein relied upon and succinctly expressed in Blackmer v. United States: 15 35 While the legislation of the Congress, unless the contrary intent appears, is construed to apply only within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, the question of its application, so far as citizens of the United States in foreign countries are concerned, is one of construction, not of legislative power. 36 Blackmer, supra note 15, at 437, 52 S. Ct. at 254. 37 Extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction is said to be justifiable under one or more international law theories, depending upon the circumstances of the offense. 16 To author comment upon the justification for extension of the section in question under the law of nations seems unnecessary since no sovereign is offended by the arrest and conviction of these appellants. Suffice it to say that if extraterritorial application is comprehended by 18 U.S.C. Sec. 641, it is jusified by the international law objective territorial principle which condones jurisdiction of an offense committed elsewhere but taking affect within a sovereign that proscribes the conduct and is asserting jurisdiction. 17 This nation has a paramount interest in protecting its property, wherever located, by assertion of its penal laws. 38 Having concluded that the extraterritorial application of the section in question would be both constitutionally and internationally permissible, it remains to be determined whether the section in fact has extraterritorial application. The section does not express the scope of its application and therefore the court is faced with finding the construction that Congress intended. Absent evidence of a contrary intent, the presumption against extraterritorial application must stand. 18 39 We find strong evidence that the section was intended to have extraterritorial application. It is inconceivable that Congress, in enacting Section 641, would proscribe only the theft of government property located within the territorial boundaries of the nation. The rule and presumption of territorial application 40 . . . should not be applied to criminal statutes which are, as a class, not logically dependent on their locality for the Government's jurisdiction, but are enacted because of the right of the Government to defend itself against obstruction, or fraud wherever perpetrated, especially if committed by its own citizens, officers or agents. [Some offenses] are such that to limit their locus to the strictly territorial jurisdiction would be greatly to curtail the scope and usefulness of the statute and leave open a large immunity for frauds as easily committed by citizens on the high seas and in foreign countries as at home. 41 In such cases, Congress has not thought it necessary to make specific provision in the law that the locus shall include the high seas and foreign countries, but allows it to be inferred from the nature of the offense. 19 42 In Bowman, the Supreme Court found that a law of the United States proscribing, in short, the presentment of false claims to the Government or its officers, larceny by trick, and conspiracy to accomplish either, had extraterritorial application. Bowman implicitly gives extraterritorial effect to 18 U.S.C. Sec. 371. Conspiracy to defraud or to perpetrate crimes against this nation are within its power to punish. This court recently gave express extraterritorial application to Section 371 on the strength of Bowman. 20 We find no reason to limit or vary our conclusion. The conspiracy statute applies extraterritorially. 43 Applying the Bowman rationale to the theft statute compels a similar conclusion as to its applicability. Two citizens of this country have violated its laws while without its territory. The law violated proscribes the taking of Government property. That law certainly represents an exercise by the Government of its right to defend itself from obstructions and frauds. To say that it is limited in its application is to allow and condone lawlessness at Government installations wherever located. We must conclude that the enactment is a member of that class of proscriptions which is not logically dependent upon the locality of violation for jurisdiction, and therefore give it extraterritorial application at least where, as here, a citizen of this nation violates it while in a foreign country. 44 Although we are convinced by the nature of the conduct prohibited by the section that Congress intended that Section 641 have the scope we here attribute to it, we are also satisfied that there exists other evidence, aside from the necessary implication of the statute, which rebuts the presumption of territorial application. 45 The Government's arguments in this regard are persuasive. Our research verifies that Congress, when it amended the criminal venue provisions of 18 U.S. C. Sec. 3238, had before it testimony and documents which indicated that the amendment was necessary because certain criminal activity against the Government and prosecutable by the Government, including violations of Section 641, could be committed abroad, but prosecution avoided because of defects in the venue provision. Presumptively, Congress amended the venue provision with the purpose, among others, of providing a forum for the prosecution of offenses which were already cognizable under the jurisdiction of district courts. 21 18 U.S.C. Sec. 3238, as amended in 1963, presupposes district court jurisdiction of offenses committed extraterritorially. Its legislative history indicates that the presupposition included the offenses described by the section we here consider. Thus, the inference that Congress intended Section 641 to have extraterritorial application is readily made. 46 To conclude otherwise would be clearly erroneous. It is not reasonable to imagine that Congress intended, by Section 641, to punish this type of offense against the United States when committed domestically but to leave it unpunished when committed abroad. Section 641 is not susceptible to that construction. It prohibits conduct which is obstructive of the functions of government. The locus of the conduct is not relevant to the end sought by the enactment. The effective operation of government cannot condone the hiatus in the law that a contrary construction would cause. The only reasonable construction of Section 641 is that it prohibits theft of government property wherever located. 47 We therefore hold that when a citizen of this country, while without the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, violates 18 U.S.C. Sec. 641, he is amenable to resulting criminal prosecution in United States District Courts. He is likewise answerable to charges of conspiring to violate that section under similar circumstances. 48 The appellants' convictions are affirmed.