Opinion ID: 757261
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: analysis

Text: 11 The CSRA was enacted on October 25, 1992. Its retroactive reach was not considered by the district court or this court on the first appeal, nor was it raised by the parties. Sua sponte we requested briefing. The United States replied that the statute was not retroactive because it imposes punishment only on a person whose failure to pay an obligation occurs after the effective date of the statute. Mussari replied that the ex post facto clause of the Constitution, art. I, § 9, cl. 3, prohibits application of the statute to any act prior to October 25, 1992. 12 We agree that acts of Mussari before the statute was enacted cannot constitutionally be made a federal crime. The indictment, however, charged him with acts beginning in November 1988, and, as the government candidly concedes, the district court relied on defendant's almost continuous employment from 1988 through the trial date of June 17, 1997 ... in judging defendant guilty of a violation of the CSRA. Indeed, the district court in finding Mussari guilty of willfully not paying found him to be so at every time that he had money to pay. The district court drew no distinction between times before and after October 25, 1992. The district court applied the statute retroactively and so applied it unconstitutionally. 13 As the conviction must be reversed, what follows is dicta but may serve a useful purpose as a guide to enforcement of the statute. First, as of October 25, 1992 Mussari owed child support of approximately $36,000 ($752 X 12 X 4), of which he had paid little. Also according to the district court's construction of the statute, he owed a substantial amount of accrued interest. A total of over $30,000 had been due for over a year. Enactment of the statute did not turn Mussari instantly into a federal offender. His willfulness had to be measured by what capacity he had to pay after the date of the statute's enactment. His crime could not have been the failure to pay $30,000 plus in October 1992 or the failure to pay $41,708 in 1997, but only what sum he could have paid on any particular date after October 25, 1992. A proper indictment would specify such dates. 14 Second, restitution is to be ordered under section 3663. 18 U.S.C. § 228(c). The cross-reference incorporates the provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 3663, among them the requirement that the court consider the financial resources of the defendant, as was not done in this case. § 3663 (a) (1)(B)(i)(II). 15 Third, failure to accept work furlough from a prison cannot be used as evidence of willful failure to pay, when work furlough, as here, would have doubled the time to be served in custody. To prefer freedom to imprisonment does not show a willful purpose to avoid paying child support. 16 Fourth, in choosing among the thousands of persons delinquent in honoring their child support obligations, the government need not show itself an unfeeling monster, or make the law hideous, by selecting as its target an ineffectual worker, plagued by accidents and bad luck, without assets to make any restitution, without children to whom he has any legal connection, and with a present wife and family to whom he has important ties. 17 REVERSED.