Opinion ID: 1267352
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Attempted Murder of Jacquel Patterson and Discharge of Firearms During the Offense (Counts Four, Five, and Six)

Text: Farmer also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence that he shot Patterson to enhance his position in the Bloods. Although we reject Farmer's argument, the Patterson shooting presents a closer question. The government argues that Farmer's conflict with Patterson stemmed from Patterson's lack of respect for the VGL, and from Patterson's gloating when Farmer was humiliated by Udi during a drug transaction. The government posits that Farmer grew tired of these insults and that he shot Patterson to defend the VGL, to repair his reputation after the accidental killing of White, and to further his standing within the setwhich is why Farmer took Russell with him as a witness. As Farmer points out, the indictment charged Farmer with attempting to murder Patterson to increase his status in the Bloods : the government did not charge Farmer with acting to enhance his position in the VGL. Farmer argues that there was no evidence that shooting Patterson could enhance his standing in the Bloods because an intra-gang shooting would not benefit the larger Bloods enterprise. Farmer points to evidence that Bloods subgroups were often closely allied, and that Bloods were expected to defendnot shootone another. However, the jury was free to credit testimony that members of the Bloods rose in rank within a given set, that actions on behalf of a set could lead to increased status, and that Farmer believed shooting Patterson to defend the VGL could thus enhance his status within the larger Bloods enterprise, the identity of his victim notwithstanding. Second, Farmer argues that the Patterson shooting was a personal matter, the culmination of months of increasing rancor unconnected to Farmer's standing or membership in the Bloods. However, the government introduced evidence that Farmer's disagreement with Patterson concerned (at least in part) the honor of the VGL set, and that Farmer was enraged by Patterson's contempt for his subgroup. The government was not required to prove that Farmer's sole or principal motive was maintaining or increasing his position, Dhinsa, 243 F.3d at 671 (internal quotation marks omitted), so long as it proved that enhancement of status was among his purposes. The government met that burden. In sum, we conclude that there was sufficient evidence to sustain the jury's verdict as to all counts, and Farmer's sufficiency challenge is denied.
Farmer challenges the repeated use of his nickname Murder in the government's presentation of evidence and argument to the jury. Farmer moved pre-trial to strike his nickname from the indictment. The district court denied the request, explaining that the government was entitled to include the name if it elicited testimony that witnesses knew Farmer as Murder. Farmer then asked that the government and its witnesses refer to him as the defendant. The government opposed the request, and the district court sided with the government. It therefore happened that Farmer was called Murder throughout the murder trial, with a lot of arch emphasis and many facetious asides. For example, in the fourth sentence of her opening statement, the first prosecutor stated that Laval Farmer, known to everyone by his gangster name as Murder, murdered ninth grader Jose White in cold blood. Moments later, describing the night that White was killed, she explained that [i]n gang life, if members of another gang mess up members of your gang, the rule is that you retaliate. So, Murder decided that it was time to take out a Crip.... Murder was on the warpath. Referring to Farmer's shooting of Patterson, the prosecutor argued that as you might imagine from what happened eight or nine months before, it wasn't Murder's way to let things go. In her summation, the second prosecutor asked the jury, Now, when opening statements began in this case three weeks ago, you must have been saying to yourself: who would do such a thing? Who would execute a 14-year-old boy simply because he was wearing blue? Well, allow me to reintroduce you to the defendant. That would be Mr. Murder. He would do something like this. In the climax of the summation, the prosecutor commented that Farmer really tried to prove himself a real gangster, to come up in the gang. You know, maybe live up to his name of Murder. Finally, in her rebuttal to Farmer's closing argument, the first prosecutor used the nickname Murder nearly thirty times. She referred to Murder ... on the warpath the day he shot Patterson, and argued that [i]n a word, ... what happened in Pennsylvania was about revenge and power and being a tough gangster. It [was] about Murder living up to his name and his reputation as a Blood. The prosecutor closed the government's case by admonishing the jury to put the responsibility for these crimes where it belongs; and that is with defendant Laval Farmer, the Blood known as Murder. We have ruled on challenges to the use of a defendant's nickname in three prior cases. In United States v. Aloi, 511 F.2d 585, 602 (2d Cir.1975), the prosecution introduced nicknames for several defendants and witnesses, including Charlie Lamb Chops, Big Vinny, Philly Rags, and Checko Brown. We explained that although this prosecution practice is to be condemned, we would not presume prejudice, because both the prosecution and defense had used the criminal backgrounds of witnesses to their advantage and because the epithets occasionally interspersed  throughout an eight-week trial were insufficient to materially divert[ ] the attention of the jury. Id. (emphasis added). In United States v. Burton, 525 F.2d 17, 19 (2d Cir.1975), we considered use of the nickname Big Time. In Burton, the defendant's nickname was heard on recorded telephone conversations, and the defendant never moved to strike the nickname from the indictment. Id. We held that [i]n view of the fact that testimony as to the defendant's nickname was relevant to the government's case and therefore properly before the jury, the prosecutor's occasional reference to the defendant by his nickname during the presentation of the government's case, while certainly not to be encouraged, was not prejudicial and does not require the grant of a new trial. Id. (emphasis added). More recently, in United States v. Mitchell, 328 F.3d 77, 83-84 (2d Cir.2003), we considered the government's use of the nickname Phox. In Mitchell, the government had noted in summation that Mitchell had `outfoxed' questions while testifying. Id. at 83 (brackets omitted). We observed that Mitchell's identity ... was not at issue in this case, nor did the admission of the nickname directly relate to the proof of the acts alleged. Accordingly, the Government's references were arguably inappropriate. Id. at 84. We held, however, that the references to Mitchell's nickname were not prejudicial in view of the fact that they were brief and isolated and in light of the substantial evidence of guilt adduced by the government. Id. (emphasis added). Our decisions in Aloi, Burton, and Mitchell are consistent with precedents in other circuit courts, which have looked to the relevance of the defendant's nickname and the frequency of its use by the prosecution in deciding whether a defendant was prejudiced. See, e.g., United States v. Candelaria-Silva, 166 F.3d 19, 33 (1st Cir. 1999) (finding no error in including in indictment or admitting testimony of nickname Macho Gatillo (Trigger Man) where nickname was critical to establishing authorship of letter); United States v. Delpit, 94 F.3d 1134, 1146 (8th Cir.1996) (permitting use of nickname Monster where it was not used to suggest [defendant's] bad character or unsavory proclivities and where it could not be avoided in wiretaps); United States v. Black, 88 F.3d 678, 681 (8th Cir.1996) (holding that reference to defendant as the Jamaican did not warrant reversal where name was not used in prejudicial manner and confidential informant only knew defendant by that name); United States v. Smith, 918 F.2d 1501, 1511, 1513 (11th Cir.1990) (affirming conviction where nickname Boss Man was introduced as evidence defendant held a supervisory or managerial role in the enterprise whose members called him Boss Man). In assessing the propriety of using a defendant's nickname, other courts have also looked to whether the name was necessarily suggestive of a criminal disposition. United States v. Dean, 59 F.3d 1479, 1492 (5th Cir.1995)(holding that the nickname Crazy K was not necessarily suggestive of a criminal disposition); see also United States v. Jorge-Salon, 734 F.2d 789, 791-92 (11th Cir.1984) (noting that [t]he alias ... `The Egg,' is similar to the alias `Red' in Taylor which [that] court observed, `is no more than a nickname') (quoting United States v. Taylor, 554 F.2d 200, 203 (5th Cir.1977)). In United States v. Williams , the Seventh Circuit vacated a mail-fraud conviction because the prosecution elicited testimony from a police detective that he knew the defendant as Fast Eddie. 739 F.2d 297, 299-301 (7th Cir.1984). The court found that the detective's testimony about the defendant's nickname was completely unrelated to any of the other proof against the defendant, and [t]he prosecution's only possible purpose in eliciting the testimony was to create an impression in the minds of the jurors that the defendant was known by the police to be an unsavory character or even a criminal. Id. at 300. The prosecution's introduction of the nickname was deemed so prejudicial as to warrant a new trial. Id. at 301; cf. United States v. Clark, 541 F.2d 1016, 1018 (4th Cir.1976) (per curiam) (holding that where an alias, though proven, holds no relationship to the acts charged, a motion to strike [the alias from the indictment] may be renewed, the alias stricken and an appropriate instruction given the jury). In these cases, the suggestiveness of the nickname has not required exclusion, especially when it helped to identify the defendant, connect him to the crime, or prove other relevant matter, or when coherent presentation of the evidence entailed passing reference to it. In determining admissibility, however, the courts also considered whether the nickname's probative value was substantially outweighed by its capacity for unfair prejudice. See Fed. R.Evid. 403; Dean, 59 F.3d at 1491. And even when admission of the nickname was found proper, the courts went on to consider the frequency, context, and character of the use that the prosecution made of it. See Mitchell, 328 F.3d at 83-84; Burton, 525 F.2d at 19; Aloi, 511 F.2d at 602. In this case, it was error for the district court to permit the government to elicit testimony of Farmer's nickname (except for references by witnesses who know him by that name): identity was not an issue at trial, and Farmer's nickname, as a name, had no legitimate relationship to the crimes charged. [6] Farmer's nickname was strongly suggestive of a criminal disposition, Dean, 59 F.3d at 1492, and a propensity to commit particularly heinous crimes, including the very offenses charged in the indictment. Federal Rule of Evidence 404(a) prohibits admission of [e]vidence of a person's character or a trait of character ... for the purpose of proving action in conformity therewith on a particular occasion. Moreover, the district court's pretrial ruling imposed no restraint or limitation on the government's use of the nickname. [7] And nothing was done to mitigate prejudice, such as giving a curative instruction. But the main problem was not the admission of the nickname into evidence. Rather, it was the prosecutors' frequently repeated, gratuitous invocation of Farmer's nickname in their addresses to the jury, uttered in a context that, in effect, invited the jurors to infer that the defendant had earned the nickname among his gang colleagues as a result of his proclivity to commit murderan inference corroborated by the government's evidence that he had yielded to that proclivity in the particular instances being tried. This is precisely what Rule 404(a) was designed to prevent. Even so, the misuse and overuse of Farmer's nickname would not lead us to vacate a conviction unless the defendant suffered substantial prejudice, by so infecting the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process. United States v. Shareef, 190 F.3d 71, 78 (2d Cir.1999) (internal quotation marks, citations, and brackets omitted); see also United States v. Mercado, 573 F.3d 138, 141 (2d Cir.2009). Moreover, where, as here, the defendant did not object to the remarks at trial, reversal is warranted only where the remarks amounted to a `flagrant abuse.' [8] United States v. Coriaty, 300 F.3d 244, 255 (2d Cir.2002) (quotation marks and brackets omitted); see also United States v. Rivera, 22 F.3d 430, 437 (2d Cir.1994). In our prior cases, the government's use of a defendant's nickname was occasional, Burton, 525 F.2d at 19; Aloi, 511 F.2d at 602, or brief and isolated, Mitchell, 328 F.3d at 84. But Farmer's nickname permitted in a manner that offended Rule 404was the main rhetorical trope used by the prosecution in its addresses to the jury. This tactical misuse of the nickname, no fewer than thirty times during the rebuttal summation in a presentation that occupies only sixteen transcript pages, amounted to a flagrant abuse. Did the misuse of the nickname cause Farmer substantial prejudice? One of the relevant considerations is that the district court did nothing to curb the abuse or mitigate the prejudice, despite initially entertaining Farmer's request that the government avoid use of the nickname in its examination of witnesses. See United States v. Feliciano, 223 F.3d 102, 123-24 (2d Cir.2000). However, the determinative factor here is the weight of the evidence. See id. at 123. Farmer's guilt respecting the White murder and the conspiracy to assault White was supported by such overwhelming evidence that conviction was a certainty. It was therefore not affected by the government's conduct. On the other hand, the evidence supporting Farmer's guilt for the attempted murder of Patterson was far less conclusive. Both the murder of White and conspiracy to assault White were shown with clarity by multiple witnesses who described in detail the sequence of events before, during, and after White's murder. Key described going with Farmer to see the Crips who attacked Roach and Shoke; the murder was obviously a (misguided) act of retaliation. Testimony of the witnesses was strongly supported by Farmer's acts and words after the crime, including his move to Wilkes-Barre and his explanation to Russell as to why he was there. Ample evidence also showed the operation of the Bloods and the role of violence in increasing members' status within the enterprise. Given the strength of the government's evidence, there can be no doubt that Farmer would have been convicted on Counts One, Two, and Three even if he had no nickname. However, our confidence does not extend to Farmer's conviction for the attempted murder of Patterson. Nobody witnessed the shooting or what happened in Patterson's bedroom. The evidence showed that the two men had an ongoing feud, with hatred and contempt on both sides. So it was plausibleas Farmer argued to the jurythat Patterson initiated an attack against Farmer in Patterson's bedroom, and that Farmer acted in self-defense. This was supported by Farmer's account to Russell of Patterson moving toward the bed where the 9 millimeter firearm was located. Additionally, as discussed in Part I, supra, it is not clear whether Farmer shot Patterson to settle a personal score or to elevate his status within the Bloods enterprise. Only the latter finding would support a conviction under the VICAR statute; but the government may have short-circuited the jury's fact-finding by repeatedly using Farmer's prejudicial nickname in discussing the Patterson shooting. For example, the government argued that Murder ... was the one that was on the warpath that day. In the government's narrative of the shooting itself, [o]ut came Murder's 380 pistol.... Murder leaves, leaving J-Rock [Patterson for] dead. In a word, the government suggested, what happened in Pennsylvania was about revenge and power and being a tough gangster. It [was] about Murder living up to his name and his reputation as a Blood. The government argues that Farmer could not have suffered prejudice because the crimes were so highly charged and gruesome that the nickname could not have had incremental effect. This argument is unsound: that the trial evidence was (unavoidably) inflammatory was no reason for the government to raise the temperature in the courtroom by irrelevant sensation. In sum, Farmer is entitled to a new trial for the Patterson shooting because of the government's misuse of Farmer's nickname, the district court's failure to forestall or mitigate the prejudice, and the arguable strength of Farmer's defenses to the charged offense. Farmer is not entitled to a new trial for the White murder or conspiracy to assault because there was no substantial prejudice given the certainty of conviction. Because we are vacating Farmer's attempted-murder conviction, we must also vacate his convictions for the related firearm offenses charged in Counts Five and Six. See United States v. Polanco, 145 F.3d 536, 540 (2d Cir.1998) (reversing derivative § 924(c) convictions where the underlying conviction was reversed).
Farmer argues that he is entitled to a new trial for the murder of Jose White because White's family members wore T-shirts featuring White's photograph during trial. On the fourth day of trial, defense counsel requested that nobody be permitted in this courtroom with T-shirts with a picture of Jose White for the jury to see. Counsel explained that he had not noticed the shirts during the first three days of trial, but that he found out when his wife read about them in the newspaper. Judge Platt responded that he had seen several spectators [o]ne of the first days and that it appeared there was a picture. But he was not sure if jurors had sufficiently good eyesight to see the photographs or if they would be affected by the picture, because he couldn't recognize that they had a picture, even with [his] glasses on. As to Farmer's request, Judge Platt opined that [p]eople are free to walk into a courtroom with whatever they want on their clothing, and I'm reluctant to adopt a different rule. Nonetheless, he urge[d] the prosecutors to urge them not to come into this courtroom with shirts with pictures. In Estelle v. Williams, 425 U.S. 501, 505, 96 S.Ct. 1691, 48 L.Ed.2d 126 (1976), the Supreme Court stated that a courtroom practice creating an unacceptable risk ... of impermissible factors coming into play violates due process and the defendant's right to a fair trial. Williams ruled that the State cannot ... compel an accused to stand trial before a jury while dressed in identifiable prison clothes. Id. at 512, 96 S.Ct. 1691. In Holbrook v. Flynn, 475 U.S. 560, 562, 106 S.Ct. 1340, 89 L.Ed.2d 525 (1986), the Supreme Court considered whether a defendant's due process rights were violated when, at his trial with five codefendants, the customary courtroom security force was supplemented by four uniformed state troopers sitting in the first row of the spectator's section. Under Williams, the question must be ... whether `an unacceptable risk is presented of impermissible factors coming into play.' Id. at 570, 106 S.Ct. 1340 (quoting Williams, 425 U.S. at 505, 96 S.Ct. 1691). Applying that standard, the augmented presence of police was held not inherently prejudicial. Id. at 570-72, 106 S.Ct. 1340. The Ninth Circuit applied Williams and Flynn to grant habeas corpus relief because spectators at a rape trial were permitted to wear buttons displaying the message Women Against Rape. Norris v. Risley, 918 F.2d 828, 831-32 (9th Cir. 1990). The buttons created an unacceptable risk ... of impermissible factors coming into play, because they conveyed a message that undermined the defendant's presumption of innocence. Id. The Ninth Circuit later relied on Norris to hold that a petitioner was inherently prejudic[ed] when the victim's family members sat in the front row at trial wearing buttons with the victim's photograph. Musladin v. Lamarque, 427 F.3d 653, 657-58, 661 (9th Cir.2005), rev'd sub. nom., Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. 70, 127 S.Ct. 649, 166 L.Ed.2d 482 (2006). The court decided that the buttons essentially `argue[d]' that [the victim] was the innocent party and that the defendant was necessarily guilty. Id. at 660. The Supreme Court overruled the Ninth Circuit's decisions in Norris and Musladin v. Lamarque on the ground that no clearly established Supreme Court precedent governed displays by trial spectators. See Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. 70, 72, 127 S.Ct. 649, 166 L.Ed.2d 482 (2006). The Court reasoned that Williams and Flynn both involved state-sponsored courtroom practices, id. at 76, 127 S.Ct. 649, and that the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, Pub.L. No. 104-132, 110 Stat. 1214 (codified in scattered sections of 18 U.S.C., 21 U.S.C., 28 U.S.C., and 42 U.S.C.), precluded extending those precedentson habeas review of a state-court judgmentto displays by private actors, Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. at 77, 127 S.Ct. 649. Carey v. Musladin stressed that the effect on a defendant's fair-trial rights of the spectator conduct to which [defendant] objects is an open question in our jurisprudence. Id. at 76, 127 S.Ct. 649. The Court did not decide that question, but it observed that the Fourth and Ninth Circuits (and state courts) were divided as to whether spectator displays can be inherently prejudicial. Id. at 76-77, 127 S.Ct. 649. In light of the Supreme Court's decision in Carey v. Musladin , Farmer's exclusive reliance on Norris is misplaced. Carey v. Musladin , in effect, wiped the slate clean and left it to lower courts to address claims such as Farmer's in the first instance. However, the circumstances of this case do not require us to decide whether courtroom displays by private actors can ever be inherently prejudicial. Defense counsel did not observe the relatives' T-shirts for three days, the trial judge could not make out the picture, and the imagery and its import only became known because a reporter providing daily coverage of the trial interviewed White's relatives for his story. See, e.g., John Moreno Gonzales, Witness Claims Victim Was in Gang, Newsday, Feb. 10, 2006, at A47. On these facts, we cannot conclude that what [the jurors] saw was so inherently prejudicial as to pose an unacceptable threat to [the] defendant's right to a fair trial. Flynn, 475 U.S. at 572, 106 S.Ct. 1340. Moreover, once defense counsel called the T-shirts to the district court's attention, the court instructed the government to urge [Farmer's family] not to come into this courtroom with shirts with the picture. There was no further objection from defense counsel, and there is no indication in the record that the government or Farmer's family ignored the court's request. This intervention fulfilled the obligation of trial judges to take careful measures to preserve the decorum of courtrooms. Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. at 81, 127 S.Ct. 649 (Kennedy, J., concurring in the judgment). The ameliorative action also distinguishes this case from Norris, 918 F.2d at 829, and Musladin v. Lamarque, 427 F.3d at 655, in which the trial courts did nothing to remove the displays from their courtrooms.
Farmer argues that the government introduced expert testimony from Pennsylvania State Trooper Edward Urban without complying with Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16(a)(1)(G), which requires the government to provide a written summary of expert testimony in advance of trial. At trial, Urban testified as to bullet trajectories, blood splatter patterns, and shell casings found at the scene of the Patterson shooting. Urban also testified that the evidence at the crime scene in Wilkes-Barre showed the kind of shootout where one person was doing the shooting and one person was being shot. In its summation, the government referred to this statement as Urban's expert conclusion, and argued that it undermined Farmer's theory of self-defense. Because we are vacating Farmer's conviction for the Patterson shooting, we need not decide whether Urban testified as an expert or whether it was error to admit his testimony without the advanced notice required by Rule 16(a)(1)(G). Farmer is now on notice that if he is retried for attempted murder, the government is likely to elicit testimony from Urban about the crime-scene evidence.
Farmer argues that his sentence of 25 years' imprisonment for the discharge of a firearm in connection with the White murder exceeds the statutory maximum. [A]ny person who, during and in relation to any crime of violence ... uses or carries a firearm ... shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such crime of violence, ... (iii) if the firearm is discharged, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 10 years. 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A). The statute imposes higher mandatory minimum penalties for defendants with prior § 924(c) convictions, see id. § 924(c)(1)(C); but Farmer's conviction on Count Three was his first under § 924(c). Therefore, the increased penalties did not apply to Count Three. Farmer argues that the ten-year mandatory minimum sentence prescribed by § 924(c)(1)(A)(iii) also constitutes the statutory maximum sentence. But the statute does not specify a maximum sentence, and in United States v. Johnson, 507 F.3d 793, 798 (2d Cir.2007), we h[e]ld that the maximum available sentence under § 924(c)(1)(A) is life imprisonment. Under Johnson, the district court was permitted to impose a sentence above the ten-year mandatory minimum. [9]
Farmer, with leave of the Court, submitted a pro se supplemental brief in which he argues that his convictions must be vacated because the Act of June 25, 1948, Pub.L. No. 80-772, 62 Stat. 683 (codified as amended in scattered sections of 18 U.S.C.), which, inter alia, grants district courts criminal jurisdiction, see 18 U.S.C. § 3231, [10] was not validly enacted by Congress. Farmer contends that the Congressional Record from the date that the Act was passed shows that a quorum was not present, and that the signature of the Speaker of the House of Representatives on the enrolled bill did not cure this deficiency. Farmer also asserts that the legislation is void because the Congressional Record does not describe how members voted on the bill, as required by Article I, Section 7, Clause 2 of the Constitution. [11] This notion has evidently been circulating among inmates in federal correctional institutions, and has been presented in other pro se briefs. The government argues that even if procedural irregularities tainted the passage of the Act of June 25, 1948 (a point the government vigorously contests), the bill was properly enrolled (signed by the Speaker of the House and President Pro Tempore of the Senate), immunizing it from judicial inquiry into procedural irregularities. The enrolled-bill rule precludes a court from looking beyond the signatures of House and Senate leaders in determining the validity of a statute. The District of Columbia Circuit recently explained the rule thus: It is not competent for a party [challenging the validity of a statute] to show, from the journals of either house, from the reports of committees or from other documents printed by authority of Congress, that an enrolled bill differs from that actually passed by Congress. The only evidence upon which a court may act when the issue is made as to whether a bill asserted to have become a law, was or was not passed by Congress is an enrolled act attested to by declaration of the two houses, through their presiding officers. An enrolled bill, thus attested, is conclusive evidence that it was passed by Congress. The enrollment itself is the record, which is conclusive as to what the statute is. Pub. Citizen v. U.S. Dist. Court for D.C., 486 F.3d 1342, 1349-50 (D.C.Cir.2007) (internal quotation marks, brackets, and ellipses omitted) (quoting Marshall Field & Co. v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649, 670, 672-73, 675, 680, 12 S.Ct. 495, 36 L.Ed. 294 (1892)); see also OneSimpleLoan v. U.S. Sec'y of Educ., 496 F.3d 197, 203 (2d Cir.2007) ([T]he enrolled bill rule `provides that if a legislative document is authenticated in regular form by the appropriate officials, the courts treat that document as properly adopted.') (brackets omitted) (quoting United States v. Pabon-Cruz, 391 F.3d 86, 99 (2d Cir.2004)); United States v. Miles, 244 Fed.Appx. 31, 33 (7th Cir.2007) (order) (relying on enrolled-bill rule to deny challenge to the validity of 18 U.S.C. § 3231); United States v. Chillemi, No. 03-cr-917(PGR)(JRI), No. 07-cv-430(PGR), 2007 WL 2995726, at -7 (D.Ariz. Oct. 12, 2007) (same); United States v. Harbin, No. C-01-cr-221(3), No. C-07-cv-260, 2007 WL 2777777, at -6 (S.D.Tex. Sept.21, 2007) (same). We agree with the government that the enrolled-bill rule precludes Farmer's challenge to the validity of the Act of June 25, 1948, and we hold that the district court properly exercised jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3231.