Opinion ID: 3037382
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Political Offense Doctrine

Text: [1] The political offense doctrine covers two types of crimes. Quinn, 783 F.2d at 793. The first are “relative” political offenses, which are “ ‘otherwise common crimes committed in connection with a political act,’ or ‘common crimes . . . committed for political motives or in a political context.’ ” Id. at 794 (citations omitted) (alteration in original). For this type of crime, we use the two-prong “incidence” test to decide whether a crime falls under the political offense exception. Id. The second are “pure” political offenses, such as treason, sedition, and espionage. Id. at 793-94. Because these crimes are by definition political, courts generally do not apply the incidence test to them. Id. at 794. Vo’s offense is of the first type, and thus the incidence test applies. [2] We explained the requirements of the incidence test in Quinn, id. at 794-811, which this court, sitting en banc, recently reaffirmed in Barapind v. Enomoto, 400 F.3d 744, 750-51 (9th Cir. 2005) (en banc) (per curiam). For a crime to qualify for the political offense exception under the incidence test, there must be “(1) the occurrence of an uprising or other violent political disturbance at the time of the charged offense, and (2) a charged offense that is ‘incidental to’ ‘in the course of,’ or ‘in furtherance of’ the uprising.” Quinn, 783 F.2d at 797 (quoted in Barapind, 400 F.3d at 750) (internal citations omitted). VO v. BENOV 5521 [3] The uprising prong constitutes the critical part of the incidence test. See Quinn, 783 F.2d at 806 (“[I]t is the ‘uprising’ component that plays the key role in ensuring that the incidence test protects only those activities that the political offense doctrine was designed to protect.”). This prong has a number of facets that must be satisfied in order for an individual’s conduct to be protected by the political offense exception. First, a “certain level of violence” must exist for the uprising prong to be satisfied. Id. at 807. Second, the prong involves a geographic limitation. An uprising “can occur only within the country or territory in which those rising up reside,” and the charged offense must take place in that geographic area. Id. at 807 (“[T]he uprising component serves to exclude from coverage under the exception criminal conduct that occurs outside the country or territory in which the uprising is taking place.”). This limitation ensures that the political offense exception will not serve to protect international terrorism. Id. at 813-14 (“[T]he word ‘uprising’ . . . does not cover terrorism or other criminal conduct exported to other locations.”).4 Third, the individual charged with the offense must be “seeking to change the form of the government under which [he] live[s].” Id. at 818. If the individual’s conduct does not meet these criteria, the individual does not qualify for the political offense exception.5 Because the level of vio- 4 See also Quinn, 783 F.2d at 807 (“The political offense exception was designed to protect those engaged in internal or domestic struggles over the form or composition of their own government, including, of course, struggles to displace an occupying power. It was not designed to protect international political coercion or blackmail, or the exportation of violence and strife to other locations.”). 5 The government points to another potential facet of the uprising prong: the political offense exception cannot apply where the government seeking extradition is not the same as the government against which the political violence is aimed. In support, it cites Quinn, which states that “in cases of international terrorism, we are being asked to return the accused to the government in the country where the acts were committed: frequently that is not a government the accused has sought to change.” 783 F.2d at 806. Neither the district court nor the magistrate judge directly addressed this facet of the doctrine, and it is unnecessary to reach it here as Vo fails to satisfy the uprising prong of the incidence test for other reasons. 5522 VO v. BENOV lence in Vietnam falls far short of that required to qualify as an uprising, we hold that Vo’s offense is not protected by the political offense exception to the Treaty. In the alternative, we hold that Vo does not qualify for the exception because his conduct does not satisfy the geographic requirement of the uprising test.
The degree of violence in Vietnam at the time of Vo’s conduct does not reach the level necessary to characterize it as an “uprising.” Quinn described an uprising as synonymous with “rebellion” or “revolution” and involving “a certain level of violence.” 783 F.2d at 807. The term does not “apply to political acts that involve less fundamental efforts to accomplish change or that do not attract sufficient adherents to create the requisite amount of turmoil.” Id. Rather, an uprising “refers to a people rising up, in their own land, against the government of that land.” Id. at 813. [4] The application of this facet of the uprising prong in other cases clearly demonstrates that the degree of violence in Vietnam at the time of the offense did not reach the level of an uprising. In Quinn, we held that an uprising occurred in Northern Ireland because there had been “a number of bombing campaigns” during a very long and frequently violent period of conflict between Irish nationalists and the United Kingdom. Id. at 812-13 (noting the Provisional Irish Republican Army, of which Quinn was a member, “advocated armed insurrection”). More recently, we found that “ ‘[t]ens of thousands of deaths and casualties’ . . . as Sikh nationalists clashed with government officers and sympathizers in Punjab” constituted “[s]ubstantial violence” sufficient to rise to the level of an uprising. Barapind, 400 F.3d at 750. Similarly, a continuing clash between indigenous people and police in northern Canada that was “not just an isolated violent disturbance” but part of a long history of struggle between native people and the government of Canada was found to constitute an uprisVO v. BENOV 5523 ing. United States v. Pitawanakwat, 120 F. Supp. 2d 921, 935 (D. Or. 2000).6 Other courts analyzing the uprising prong have looked for “endemic and widespread violence.” Ahmad v. Wigen, 726 F. Supp. 389, 409 (E.D.N.Y. 1989), aff’d, 910 F.2d 1063 (2d Cir. 1990) (holding that violence against Israeli settlers in the West Bank, before the Intifada of the 1980s, was not an uprising). The analysis in these cases shows that in order to constitute an uprising, a conflict must involve either some short period of intense bloodshed or an accumulation of violent incidents over a long period of time. Barapind, 400 F.3d at 750; Quinn, 783 F.2d at 812. [5] The burden of proving the existence of a campaign against the Vietnamese government that involves sufficient violence to rise to the level of an uprising is on Vo, the party presenting an affirmative defense to extradition.7 Vo has not met this burden. In support of his claim that an uprising exists in Vietnam, Vo cites the thousands of signatures on a petition for his freedom as evidence of a “war” between the GFVN and Vietnam. He claims that “GFVN members [have been] murdered and imprisoned for their actions,” and points to a handful of attacks against the Vietnamese government that GFVN has attempted or carried out. He further notes that Vietnam “consider[s] Vo a terrorist.” The exhibits that Vo has presented are not particularly convincing. Furthermore, even if we construe all the evidence in his favor, Vo still cannot 6 The district court there stated that: Native people from multiple tribes undertook simultaneous, if not coordinated, action in defense of their unceded lands and in defense of their people on more than one front by petitioning the Queen of England, setting up armed encampments, creating a supply network with other tribes, overtaking a Canadian military base, and taking control of large areas of land. Pitawanakwat, 120 F. Supp. 2d at 935. 7 See, e.g., Pitawanakwat, 120 F. Supp. 2d at 928 (“The initial burden of proof is on defendant to establish the essential elements of the political offense exception.”). 5524 VO v. BENOV show a sustained and widespread degree of violence that rises to the level of an uprising. The sum of a few skirmishes with the police, coupled with a handful of explosions and bombing attempts around the Pacific Rim and a keen desire to see the downfall of the communist regime in Saigon, does not amount to an uprising. Because the events relied on by Vo do not reach the necessary level of violence, he cannot meet this critical component of the uprising prong. Thus, his conduct is not protected by the political offense exception.
Even were we to consider the level of violence in Vietnam at the time of Vo’s conduct sufficient to constitute an uprising, Vo still would not qualify for the political offense exception because his crime did not occur “within the country or territory in which those rising up reside,” as required by the incidence test. Quinn, 783 F.2d at 807. Vo offers two different arguments in support of his contention that he satisfies the geographic requirement of the uprising prong. First, Vo argues that under Quinn, the territorial restriction of the incidence test need not be strictly applied. Vo places great weight on language in Quinn that he characterizes as a “savings clause.” The portion of Quinn on which Vo relies states that “[w]hile determining the proper geographic boundaries of an ‘uprising’ involves a legal issue that ordinarily will be fairly simple to resolve, there may be some circumstances under which it will be more difficult to do so. We need not formulate a general rule that will be applicable to all situations.” 783 F.2d at 807. Vo argues that in light of this alleged “savings clause,” the “symbolic” nature of both the attack’s location (the embassy) and its timing (the anniversary of the founding of the South Vietnamese army) make “it . . . unreasonable to consider the attack . . . to be geographically barred.” As his second argument, Vo asserts that he can satisfy even the strictest construction of the geographic requirement because the Vietnamese embassy was the target VO v. BENOV 5525 of his attack and thus the crime occurred “in” Vietnam. We reject both of Vo’s arguments. [6] Vo essentially proposes that this court construe the incidence test’s uprising prong as containing an amorphous exception to the geographic requirement that permits extradition courts in their discretion to deem the requirement satisfied even though the criminal act alleged occurs outside the boundaries of the state against which the uprising is directed. Such an expansive interpretation of the geographic requirement, however, is expressly precluded by the text of Quinn. There, we explained that: The term “uprising” refers to a revolt by indigenous people against their own government or an occupy- ing power. That revolt can occur only within the country or territory in which those rising up reside. By definition acts occurring in other lands are not part of the uprising. Quinn, 783 F.2d at 807 (emphasis added). As this explanation makes clear, offenses that occur outside the geographic boundaries of the country or territory in which those “rising up” reside cannot be considered part of an uprising for the purpose of the political offense exception. The “savings clause” that Vo relies on is not to the contrary. The potential difficulty in “determining the proper geographic boundaries of an ‘uprising,’ ” id., refers to the challenge a court faces when an offense for which extradition is sought occurs in territory the legal status of which is unclear, including territory allegedly occupied by the requesting state (as opposed to within its formal borders). In that circumstance, the boundaries of the occupation are not fixed and may shift frequently, requiring the court to make the some5526 VO v. BENOV times difficult determination whether the territory in which the offense occurred is in fact occupied.8 Not only does Vo’s interpretation of the geographic requirement of the uprising prong conflict with the text of Quinn, it conflicts with the requirement’s underlying purpose as well. As we have previously noted, the territorial limitation on the uprising prong plays a critical role in the political offense doctrine — it ensures that the political offense exception is not used to allow international terrorists to escape prosecution or to encourage the spread of civil insurrections to neighboring states. Id. at 813-14.9 Vo’s construction of the territorial restriction would extend the scope of the political offense exception to cover many acts of international terrorism. Under Vo’s understanding of the geographic requirement of the uprising prong, an offense that is sufficiently “symbolic” — in terms of either its location or its timing — need not occur in the country or territory of an uprising to be protected by the political offense exception. As many acts of international terrorism are committed for their symbolism (including the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center) and often meet the other requirements of the incidence test, Vo’s interpretation would allow such acts to be covered by the political offense exception — precisely what the geo- 8 We made the limited reach of the “savings clause” abundantly clear in the sentence in Quinn that directly follows the one quoted by Vo. The next sentence states that “for purposes of the political offense exception an ‘uprising’ cannot extend beyond the borders of the country or territory in which a group of citizens or residents is seeking to change their particular government or governmental structure.” Quinn, 783 F.2d at 807. 9 We emphasized the function of the territorial limitation of the political offense exception in Quinn, stating that “the word ‘uprising’ means exactly that: it refers to a people rising up, in their own land, against the government of that land. It does not cover terrorism or other criminal conduct exported to other locations.” Id. at 813-14; see also id. at 805 (“The application of [the political offense] exception to acts of international terrorism would comport with neither [the original justifications for the exception or the traditional requirements of the incidence test].”). VO v. BENOV 5527 graphic limitation of the uprising prong is designed to prevent. Similarly, the requirement is intended to prevent the use of the political offense exception by those seeking to spread internal conflicts to neighboring countries and thus to turn civil insurrections into regional conflicts. The essence of the exception is to protect against extradition those trying to change their own government by actions within their own territory.10 Accordingly, we reject Vo’s effort to create a discretionary exception to the territorial component of the political offense exception. [7] We also reject Vo’s claim that when an offense is committed in another nation against the embassy of the country in which an uprising is occurring, the uprising prong’s geographic requirement is met, even though the offense is committed outside of the borders of the country that is the object of the insurrection. We also reaffirm what we said in Quinn: in order to satisfy the geographic requirement of the incidence test’s uprising prong, an offense must occur within the geographic borders of the nation at which the uprising is directed or within its occupied territory. Id. at 807. The geographic requirement is not satisfied when an offense occurs on property owned or controlled by that nation that is located within the geographic borders of another state. Because Vo committed the offense outside the territorial boundaries of the state in which the uprising was allegedly occurring, his conduct does not meet the geographic requirement of the incidence test’s uprising prong, and therefore the crime does not qualify for the political offense exception.11 10 See id. at 807 (“[T]he uprising component serves to exclude from coverage under the exception criminal conduct that occurs outside the country or territory in which the uprising is taking place. . . . [The political offense exception] was not designed to protect . . . the exportation of violence and strife to other locations — even to the homeland of an oppressor nation. Thus, an uprising is . . . limited spatially.”). 11 Vo must meet all the criteria of the uprising prong in order to qualify for the political offense exception. We have found that he cannot meet at least two of those criteria and thus do not reach the question whether he fails to meet other criteria of this prong or the “incidental to” prong by virtue of his citizenship or for other reasons. 5528 VO v. BENOV