Opinion ID: 167660
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: What are the congressional findings?

Text: 42 Analysis of the effect of felons' possession of body armor is facilitated by Congress's specific findings regarding the effects of the prohibited activity on interstate commerce. Grimmett, 439 F.3d at 1272. We treat Congress's findings on essentially factual issues with a great deal of deference, Walters v. Nat'l Ass'n of Radiation Survivors, 473 U.S. 305, 330 n. 12, 105 S.Ct. 3180, 87 L.Ed.2d 220 (1985), and [p]roper respect for a co-ordinate branch requires that we also treat Congress's normative conclusions and constitutional judgments with great respect. See United States v. Harris, 106 U.S. (16 Otto) 629, 635, 1 S.Ct. 601, 27 L.Ed. 290 (1883). 43 Although there were no preambulatory findings enacted as part of the statute, the House Report contained the following formal findings regarding the rationale for section 931: 44 (1) nationally, police officers and ordinary citizens are facing increased danger as criminals use more deadly weaponry, body armor, and other sophisticated assault gear; 45 (2) crime at the local level is exacerbated by the interstate movement of body armor and other assault gear; 46 (3) there is a traffic in body armor moving in or otherwise affecting interstate commerce, and existing Federal controls over such traffic do not adequately enable the States to control this traffic within their own borders through the exercise of their police power; 47 (4) recent incidents, such as the murder of San Francisco Police Officer James Guelff by an assailant wearing 2 layers of body armor, a 1997 bank shoot out in north Hollywood, California, between police and 2 heavily armed suspects outfitted in body armor, and the 1997 murder of Captain Chris McCurley of the Etowah County, Alabama Drug Task Force by a drug dealer shielded by protective body armor, demonstrate the serious threat to community safety posed by criminals who wear body armor during the commission of a violent crime.... 48 H.R. Rep. 107-193, pt. 1, at 2. 49 Several of these findings make no mention of interstate commerce. Those that do focus on three points: (1) an interstate market for body armor exists, (2) the interstate movement of body armor increases crime, and (3) federal controls over the interstate market will allow states to control the intrastate trade in body armor. The first two points are surely true, but they were also true in Lopez. An interstate market exists for guns and for body armor, and the interstate movement of both can increase crime. Yet in Lopez the existence of the market and the incidence of crime did not establish that the prohibited possessions substantially affected interstate commerce. See Lopez, 514 U.S. at 563-64, 115 S.Ct. 1624 (rejecting the argument that firearm possession substantially affects interstate commerce because it can result in violent crime, which in turn affects insurance and education and thus the national economy). 50 The congressional findings regarding the existence of an interstate market for body armor would be more meaningful if the statute attempted to suppress or limit that market. As discussed above, however, it does not. Manufacture, distribution, and sale of body armor — even sale of body armor to felons — is entirely lawful, and has not been regulated by Congress. Congressional findings that crime at the local level is exacerbated by the interstate movement of body armor and other assault gear and that there is a traffic in body armor moving in or otherwise affecting interstate commerce, H.R.Rep. No. 107-193, pt. 1, at 2, while undoubtedly true, do nothing to explain or justify a statute that does not limit the interstate movement of body armor or the traffic in it. 51 The third point suggests that federal regulation of the interstate traffic in body armor would somehow enable the states themselves to prohibit felons' possession. But thirty-one states already regulate the possession or use of body armor, with an array of legislative approaches. 7 It is thus clear that the federal prohibition does not enable state prohibitions. At best, the federal law duplicates the state prohibitions. At worst, it may conflict with a state's policy judgment, see Jones v. United States, 529 U.S. 848, 859, 120 S.Ct. 1904, 146 L.Ed.2d 902 (2000) (Stevens, J., concurring) (noting that the severe penalties of the federal criminal arson statute could effectively displace a policy choice made by the State); discourage experimentation, see Lopez, 514 U.S. at 583, 115 S.Ct. 1624 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (suggesting that the Gun-Free School Zones Act foreclose[d] the States from experimenting and exercising their own judgment in an area to which States lay claim by right of history and expertise); or even preempt state criminal laws, see Pennsylvania v. Nelson, 350 U.S. 497, 504, 76 S.Ct. 477, 100 L.Ed. 640 (1956) (holding that a federal sedition statute preempted the Pennsylvania Sedition Act); see also Michael A. Simons, Prosecutorial Discretion and Prosecution Guidelines: A Case Study in Controlling Federalization, 75 N.Y.U. L.Rev. 893, 962 n. 309 (2000) (noting the de facto preemption of state and local prosecutions in the context of crimes implicating federal interests). 52 Moreover, the findings indicate that this statute falls primarily within an area of traditional regulation by the states, namely protecting police officers and ordinary citizens from violent crime. See Lopez, 514 U.S. at 561 n. 3, 115 S.Ct. 1624 (noting the primary authority of the states for creating the criminal law (internal quotation marks omitted)); Morrison, 529 U.S. at 615-17, 120 S.Ct. 1740 (noting areas of traditional state concern and reject[ing] the argument that Congress may regulate noneconomic, violent criminal conduct based solely on that conduct's aggregate effect on interstate commerce). Congress was understandably concerned about the serious threat to community safety posed by criminals who wear body armor during the commission of a violent crime. H.R.Rep. No. 107-193, pt. 1, at 2. Yet in this area the Supreme Court has emphasized the prerogatives of the states. See, e.g., Morrison, 529 U.S. at 618, 120 S.Ct. 1740 (The regulation and punishment of intrastate violence that is not directed at the instrumentalities, channels, or goods involved in interstate commerce has always been the province of the States.); Cohens v. Virginia, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 264, 426, 5 L.Ed. 257 (1821) (Marshall, C.J.) (concluding that Congress has no general right to punish murder committed within any of the States). 8 Moreover, as noted above, this statute not only intrudes on an area of traditional state concern but also potentially conflicts with the widespread state regulation that already exists. Cf. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 561 n. 3, 115 S.Ct. 1624 (When Congress criminalizes conduct already denounced as criminal by the States, it effects a change in the sensitive relation between federal and state criminal jurisdiction. (internal quotation marks omitted)). Far from establishing a substantial effect on interstate commerce, these findings raise concerns about federal intrusion and suggest that wearing body armor affects interstate commerce insofar as all crime hurts the economy — an argument the Supreme Court rejected in Lopez and Morrison.