Opinion ID: 3066058
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The “Trigger” Argument

Text: The Greens say our cases have rejected Apprendi’s application to determinations of the amount of restitution, not to determinations of whether restitution is triggered at all. As a result, they insist, we can apply Apprendi to the trigger determination without running afoul of our caselaw. At oral argument the Greens theorized a regime under which Apprendi would apply to the determination of the trigger but not the amount. 8 UNITED STATES V . GREEN We are not persuaded. First, this approach contravenes the categorical nature of our statements that restitution is “unaffected” by Apprendi. See page 7 supra. These categorical statements control even though the cases from which they issued didn’t specifically address the trigger argument. A panel may adopt a categorical rule as circuit law without explicitly rejecting every conceivable counterargument. We further hesitate to adopt the trigger argument because the Greens can’t cite any case—state or federal—that has accepted it, and because the two circuits that considered it, rejected it. See United States v. Milkiewicz, 470 F.3d 390, 403 (1st Cir. 2006); United States v. Reifler, 446 F.3d 65, 115–18 (2d Cir. 2006). Finally, applying Apprendi to the determination of the trigger but not the determination of the amount would result in unacceptable cognitive dissonance. If Apprendi covers the determination whether there are any victims at all, shouldn’t it also cover the determination whether there’s one victim who suffered a $1000 loss as opposed to 1000 victims who suffered a combined $1,000,000 loss? It’s hard to justify Apprendi protections for the determination of the first victim but not the 999 to follow, each of which would increase the amount of restitution imposed upon the defendant. And if we treat each victim-determination as a separate trigger, we’re effectively applying Apprendi to the determination of the amount. That’s not so much distinguishing our precedent as overruling it. B. Southern Union and the Miller v. Gammie Standard The Greens next urge us to overrule our caselaw in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Southern Union, where a gas company was charged with violating the UNITED STATES V . GREEN 9 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which provides for a maximum criminal fine of $50,000 per day of violation. 132 S. Ct. at 2349. The indictment alleged the company had violated RCRA for a period of 762 days, but the jury was instructed that it could convict if it found even a single day’s violation. Id. And convict the jury did. Id. At sentencing, the court calculated a “maximum potential fine of $38.1 million”—$50,000 x 762 days—“from which it imposed a fine of $6 million and a ‘community service obligatio[n]’ of $12 million.” Id. Defendant objected that it had been convicted of just one day’s violation, so any fact resulting in a fine over the daily maximum had to be found by a jury. Id. The Supreme Court agreed, applying Apprendi to criminal fines. Id. at 2349, 2357. Southern Union provides reason to believe Apprendi might apply to restitution. As the Court held: “In stating Apprendi’s rule, we have never distinguished one form of punishment from another. Instead, our decisions broadly prohibit judicial factfinding that increases maximum criminal ‘sentence[s],’ ‘penalties,’ or ‘punishment[s]’—terms that each undeniably embrace fines.” Id. at 2351. The Greens say that “by applying Apprendi to criminal fines, Southern Union strongly signals that Apprendi applies to criminal restitution as well.” But “strong[] signals” aren’t enough. For a threejudge panel to overrule circuit precedent, the intervening case must “undercut the theory or reasoning underlying the prior circuit precedent in such a way that the cases are clearly irreconcilable.” Miller v. Gammie, 335 F.3d 889, 900 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc) (emphasis added). Southern Union doesn’t cross that threshold. Even if it chips away at the theory behind our restitution cases, it’s not “clearly irreconcilable” with our holdings that restitution is “unaffected” by Apprendi. 10 UNITED STATES V . GREEN First, the obvious: Southern Union deals with criminal fines, not restitution. It’s far from “clear[]”—Miller’s term—that a rule governing one would govern the other. Indeed, it’s not even clear that restitution’s a form of punishment. We’ve held in some contexts that “restitution under the MVRA is punishment.” United States v. Dubose, 146 F.3d 1141, 1145 (9th Cir. 1998); see United States v. Ballek, 170 F.3d 871, 876 (9th Cir. 1999). But in other contexts, we’ve held it’s not. See United States v. Phillips, 704 F.3d 754, 771 (9th Cir. 2012) (“[F]orfeiture and restitution serve entirely distinct purposes: ‘Congress conceived of forfeiture as punishment . . . . The purpose of restitution . . . , however, is not to punish the defendant, but to make the victim whole again.’” (quoting United States v. Newman, 659 F.3d 1235, 1241 (9th Cir. 2011))); Gordon, 393 F.3d at 1052 n.6 (“[T]he MVRA’s purpose is to make the victims whole; conversely, the Sentencing Guidelines serve a punitive purpose.”). Sometimes we’ve held it’s a hybrid, with “both compensatory and penal purposes.” United States v. Rich, 603 F.3d 722, 729 (9th Cir. 2010). Even if Apprendi covers all forms of punishment, restitution’s not “clearly” punishment, so we can’t rely on Southern Union to overrule our restitution precedents. Second, Southern Union concerned a determinate punishment scheme with statutory maximums: “[O]ur decisions broadly prohibit judicial factfinding that increases maximum criminal ‘sentence[s],’ ‘penalties,’ or ‘punishment[s].’” 132 S. Ct. at 2351 (emphasis added). Restitution carries with it no statutory maximum; it’s pegged to the amount of the victim’s loss. A judge can’t exceed the non-existent statutory maximum for restitution no matter what facts he finds, so Apprendi’s not implicated. UNITED STATES V . GREEN 11 The Fourth Circuit has already held that Southern Union doesn’t apply to restitution because “there is no prescribed statutory maximum in the restitution context.” United States v. Day, 700 F.3d 713, 732 (4th Cir. 2012) (emphasis in original). And, prior to Southern Union, other circuits came to the same conclusion. See Milkiewicz, 470 F.3d at 404 (1st Cir.); Reifler, 446 F.3d at 117–20 (2d Cir.); United States v. Sosebee, 419 F.3d 451, 454 (6th Cir. 2005). Similarly, our own court held last December that Southern Union doesn’t apply to criminal forfeiture because, like restitution, forfeiture lacks a statutory maximum: “The Southern Union Court explicitly held . . . that there could be no ‘Apprendi violation where no maximum is prescribed.’” Phillips, 704 F.3d at 770 (quoting Southern Union, 132 S. Ct. at 2353). But see Southern Union, 132 S. Ct. at 2350–51 (Apprendi applies to fines where the maximum is based on “the amount of . . . the victim’s loss.”). This difficulty with applying Southern Union—and, by extension Apprendi—to an indeterminate scheme further undermines any claim that Southern Union is “clearly irreconcilable” with our restitution caselaw.