Opinion ID: 766875
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Construction of 111

Text: 38 We have not previously decided whether 111(b) defines a separate offense or is simply a penalty enhancement provision. A few circuit courts that have considered the question have held the latter. See United States v. Segien, 114 F.3d 1014, 1020 (10th Cir. 1997); United States v. Young, 936 F.2d 1050, 1055 (9th Cir. 1991). But other courts, including this one, have assumed without deciding that 111 assault with a dangerous weapon could be charged as a distinct offense, see United States v. Hudson, 972 F.2d 504, 505 (2d Cir. 1992); United States v. Reid, 517 F.2d 953, 965 (2d Cir. 1975); United States v. Bey, 667 F.2d 7, 11 (5th Cir. 1982), and have interpreted similar provisions of other statutes to constitute separate offenses rather than sentencing enhancements, see Grimes v. United States, 607 F.2d 6, 12-15 (2d Cir. 1979) (interpreting federal bank robbery statute provision providing for most severe penalty where the offense put a person's life in jeopardy or involved the use of a dangerous weapon). 39 The Supreme Court has recently addressed this subject in two cases: Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 118 S. Ct. 1219, 1226 (1998), where the Court found a sentencing enhancement, and Jones v. United States, 119 S. Ct. 1215, 1221-22 (1999), where the Court found a separate offense. In the first case, the statutory provision increased the penalty for unlawful re-entry to the United States for aliens who had been deported subsequent to conviction of a felony. See Almendarez-Torres, 118 S. Ct. at 1222. In the second case, the federal carjacking statute authorized higher penalties, including death, where the crime resulted in serious bodily injury or death. See Jones, 119 S. Ct. at 1218. Distinguishing the earlier case, the Jones Court observed that the enhancement provision in Almendarez-Torres revolved around the defendant's recidivism, a factor traditionally considered by courts at sentencing. See Jones, 119 S. Ct. at 1227. 40 We believe that Jones rather than Almendarez-Torres controls this case. As the Court noted in Jones, recidivism is unique as a sentencing factor in that unlike virtually any other consideration to enlarge the possible penalty for an offense, . . . a prior conviction must itself have been established through procedures satisfying the fair notice, reasonable doubt, and jury trial guarantees. Jones, 119 S. Ct. at 1227. Accordingly, the Jones Court explained that Almendarez-Torres stands for the proposition that not every fact expanding a penalty range must be stated in a felony indictment, the precise holding being that recidivism increasing the maximum penalty need not be so charged. Id. at 1226-27; see also United States v. Baldwin, 186 F.3d 99, 101 (2d Cir. 1999) (per curiam) (Whatever considerations may distinguish the class of offense elements, on the one hand, from the class of sentencing factors, on the other, it is clear that . . . recidivism . . . is relevant only to sentencing). 41 Applying Jones, we hold that 111(b) defines a separate offense rather than simply a sentencing enhancement. Although the language of 111(b), which includes the term enhanced penalty, suggests otherwise, see Segien, 114 F.3d at 1018 (the fact that 111(b) is set off and separately titled enhanced penalty in bold print is particularly persuasive evidence of Congress's intent to create a sentencing enhancement rather than a separate offense), the text of such a provision is not dispositive. See Jones, 119 S. Ct. at 1219 (noting that the statute at issue at first glance has a look to it suggesting that the numbered subsections are only sentencing provisions); Baldwin, 186 F.3d at 101. As in Jones, the sentencing provisions of 111 not only provide for steeply higher penalties, Jones, 119 S. Ct. at 1219 (a maximum of ten years as opposed to three years or one year), but also condition them on further facts [such as injury] that seem quite as important as the elements in the principal paragraph. Id. at 1216. These facts, including contact with the victim, bodily injury, and the use of a dangerous weapon, are of the type that the states and the federal government traditionally have considered elements of an offense rather than sentencing factors. See id. at 1220-21. This tradition increases the probability that Congress intended 111 to create separate offenses, since 42 statutory drafting . . . occurs against a backdrop . . . of traditional treatment of certain categories of important facts . . . If a statute is unclear about treating such a fact as element or penalty aggravator, it makes sense to look at what other statutes have done, since Congress is unlikely to intend any radical departures from past practice without making a point of saying so. 43 Id. at 1216-17. 44 Finally, as in Jones, we find that interpreting the pertinent provisions of 111 as delineating the categories of assault as separate offenses is the correct course because it also obviates the need to address the grave and doubtful constitutional questions, id. at 1222, that would otherwise be presented under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the jury guarantee of the Sixth Amendment. Interpreting 111 as creating only one offense would raise serious constitutional questions because the statute would thereby relegate to the sentencing judge factfinding that is traditionally reserved for the jury and that goes to the elements of the crime. See id. at 1226. For all of these reasons, we construe 111 as defining three separate offenses, each element of which must be charged in the indictment and proven to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. 45 In the first trial, the government charged Chestaro with a violation of 18 U.S.C. 111(b), implicitly assuming that subsection (b) defines an offense distinct from that defined by 111(a). The government and Chestaro proceeded throughout the trial under the supposition that the defendant's use of a weapon or infliction of bodily injury was an element of the offense to be proven to the jury rather than a fact to be proven at sentencing for purposes of sentencing enhancement. The district court's charge in the first trial reflected this view of the statute. In light of our holding that 111(a) and 111(b) together comprise three separate offenses, we conclude that the government correctly charged Chestaro with a violation of 111(b), and that the district court's original charge was correct in setting forth the five elements necessary to prove a 111(b) violation. We also conclude that the district court did not err in delivering to the jury a lesser included offense charge on the all other assaults offense defined in 111(a). 46