Opinion ID: 771184
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Presumption Applies Here

Text: 67 The statutes at issue here, 18 U.S.C. 2241(a) and 2242(1), prohibit certain forms of sexual misconduct committed in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States . . . . In turn, 18 U.S.C. 7 (3) defines special maritime and territorial jurisdiction as 68 [a]ny lands reserved or acquired for the use of the United States, and under the exclusive or concurrent jurisdiction thereof, or any place purchased or otherwise acquired by the United States by consent of the legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection of a fort, magazine, arsenal, dockyard, or other needful building. 69 Neither precedent nor logic supports the majority's conclusion that the extraterritoriality presumption is inapplicable because a jurisdictional statute is at play. Under Bowman, the presumption clearly applies to criminal statutes. See Bowman, 260 U.S. at 98. And the majority's effort to avoid the presumption because 7(3) defines territorial jurisdiction is bootstrapping at its worst. Although jurisdictional statutes address how far Congress wishes to extend U.S. law, absent clear language or some meaningful signal, such statutes do not necessarily indicate whether Congress intended extraterritorial jurisdiction. The majority's conclusion that we should simply employ the standard tools of statutory interpretation when interpreting 7(3), see Maj. Op. at 15126 (quoting Bin Laden, 92 F. Supp. 2d at 206 n.32), brings us right back to the question at hand. In 7(3), Congress defined territorial jurisdiction. But territorial cannot be equated with extraterritorial, and hence, we still need to determine whether Congress intended to extend the reach of territorial jurisdiction to foreign lands. To proceed otherwise would allow an end-run around the requirement that Congress must be explicit in demonstrating its intent to legislate extraterritorially. 70 Nevertheless, the majority relies on the jurisdictional nature of 7(3) as a reason to avoid application of the presumption. 4 This position has been adopted by one district court in New York, see United States v. Bin Laden, 92 F. Supp. 2d 189, 206 n.32 (S.D.N.Y. 2000), but subsequently was criticized by the Second Circuit in Gatlin . Although a district court opinion from another circuit would have no precedential value in this court, in some cases it might be instructive; but that is hardly the case here when the decision was already disavowed by the Second Circuit. 5 See also United States v. Erdos, 474 F.2d 157, 160 (4th Cir. 1973) (failing to address canon of construction and explaining that where the power of the Congress is clear, and the language of the exercise is broad, we perceive no duty to construe a statute narrowly.). 71 In its effort to avoid the presumption against extraterritoriality, the majority extends Bowman far beyond its holding or any reasonable extension of it. The majority states that the presumption does not apply where the legislation implicates concerns that are not inherently domestic and then cites Bowman as an example, explaining that in that case the Supreme Court held that the territorial presumption does not govern the interpretation of criminal statutes that, by their nature, implicate the legitimate interests of the United States abroad. Maj. Op. at 1170-71. 72 Bowman does not stand for such a far-reaching proposition. Rather, Bowman recognizes a narrow exception to the presumption against extraterritoriality for criminal statutes which are, as a class, not logically dependant 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. 260 U.S. at 98. 6 There can be little doubt that the narrow Bowman exception does not cover the penal statutes at issue here. Nor, in my view, does the narrow exception emanating from Bowman and its progeny - the commonsense principle that courts should not presume Congress intended to legislate domestically when it criminalizes behavior that presents a cognizable threat within our borders 7 - support the majority's conclusion. See Kollias v. D & G Marine Maintenance, 29 F.3d 67, 71 (2d Cir. 1994) (The Supreme Court's recent discussions of the presumption against extraterritoriality, none of which mentions Bowman, seem to require that all statutes, without exception, be construed to apply within the United States only, unless a contrary intent appears.). 73 The majority offers a second reason for not applying the presumption here, namely that land subject to subsection 7(3) is not 'extraterritorial,' as the Supreme Court has defined the term. Maj. Op. at 15126. In support of this statement, the majority cites to a single statement in Aramco. See Aramco, 499 U.S. at 248 (In applying this rule of construction, we look to see whether 'language in the [relevant Act] gives any indication of a congressional purpose to extend its coverage beyond places over which the United States has sovereignty or has some measure of legislative control.') (quoting Foley Bros., 336 U.S. at 285) (emphasis added). 8 74 Read literally, as the majority proposes, this language would eviscerate the concept of extraterritoriality. If territorial automatically includes foreign lands where U.S. law applies, then the presumption against extraterritoriality is pointless because there would be no extraterritorial application of U.S. law. 75 The Second Circuit declined to go down a similar path in Kollias. The court rejected the argument that the presumption against extraterritoriality does not apply to a case involving application of the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (the LHWCA) to an injury on an American flag vessel because the ship was in effect a United States territory as it traveled across the high seas. 29 F.3d at 72. After first recognizing that the law of the flag does not necessarily govern shipboard conduct, the court exposed the underlying circularity of this reasoning: 76 In any case, the concept of extraterritoriality does not refer to the body of law that governs the dispute; if it did, extraterritorial application of United States statutes would be an impossibility because any place where United States law governed a particular dispute would be considered United States territory. Accordingly, we decline to characterize the [ship] as a kind of floating United States territory, where application of the LHWCA would not be extraterritorial. Id. 9 77 Simply declaring the foreign locations to be part of U.S. territory is a semantic sleight of hand that avoids the real question of statutory interpretation and congressional intent. I turn next to an examination of the statute itself.