Opinion ID: 186332
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Standard of Review and General Principles Governing Venue

Text: 13 The Government bears the burden of establishing by a preponderance of the evidence that venue is proper with respect to each count charged against the defendant. United States v. Haire, 371 F.3d 833, 837 (D.C.Cir.2004) (citing United States v. Lam, 924 F.2d 298, 301 (D.C.Cir.1991)). In reviewing whether the Government has properly established venue, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the Government. Id. 14 Proper venue in criminal proceedings was a matter of concern to the Nation's founders. United States v. Cabrales, 524 U.S. 1, 6, 118 S.Ct. 1772, 1775, 141 L.Ed.2d 1 (1998). Indeed, the Constitution twice safeguards the defendant's venue right: Article III, § 2, cl. 3, instructs that Trial of all Crimes ... shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed'; the Sixth Amendment calls for trial `by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.' Id.; see also United States v. Passodelis, 615 F.2d 975, 977 n. 3 (3d Cir.1980) (noting that although, read literally, the provision in the Sixth Amendment is a vicinage rather than venue provision, because it specifies the place from which the jurors are to be selected rather than the place of trial, the distinction has never been given any weight, perhaps... because the requirement that the jury be chosen from the state and district where the crime was committed presupposes that the jury will sit where it is chosen). 15 Mindful that [q]uestions of venue in criminal cases ... raise deep issues of public policy, the Supreme Court has articulated a rule endorsing a restrictive construction of venue provisions: 16 If an enactment of Congress equally permits the underlying spirit of the construtional concern for trial in the vicinage to be respected rather than to be disrespected, construction should go in the direction of constitutional policy even though not commanded by it. 17 United States v. Johnson, 323 U.S. 273, 276, 65 S.Ct. 249, 251, 89 L.Ed. 236 (1944). Although the specific holding in Johnson was mooted by statute in 1948, the rule of construction announced in that case survives. See, e.g., United States v. Cores, 356 U.S. 405, 407, 78 S.Ct. 875, 877, 2 L.Ed.2d 873 (1958) (The provision for trial in the vicinity of the crime is a safeguard against the unfairness and hardship involved when an accused is prosecuted in a remote place. Provided its language permits, the Act in question should be given that construction which will respect such considerations.); see also United States v. Brennan, 183 F.3d 139, 147 (2d Cir.1999) (noting that Johnson rule of construction retains vitality).