Court Opinion

ID: 9494212
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:32:15.664585+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:17.178231
License: Public Domain

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment:
The majority concludes that the mail fraud statute, when applied to the use of a private or commercial interstate carrier employed solely to deliver an item intrastate, is a permissible exercise of Congress’s Commerce Clause power under Lopez ’s second category. Because I believe that the constitutionality of the mail fraud statute more appropriately is sustained under Lopez’s third category, I decline to join Section III A. 2-4 and write separately to explain my reasoning but concur in the remainder of the majority’s opinion and in the judgment.
I.
In United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995), the Supreme Court established three categories by which to evaluate Congress’s exercise of its Commerce Clause power: Congress may (1) regulate the “use of the channels of interstate commerce”; or (2) “regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even when the threat may come only from intra-state activities”; or (3) regulate “activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.” Id. at 558-59,115 S.Ct. 1624.
Using Lopez’s second category, the majority concludes that the mail fraud statute is a regulation that protects private mail carriers, as instruments of interstate commerce, from harm. In so concluding, the *260majority-interprets Lopez’s second category in a manner that allows Congress unbounded authority to legislate federal criminal laws that only incidentally involve instrumentalities of interstate commerce, which, in my opinion, leads to an untenable result. See Gibbs v. Babbitt, 214 F.3d 483, 490 (4th Cir.2000) (“It is essential to our system of government that the commerce power not extend to effects on interstate commerce that are so remote that we would effectually obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Supreme Court precedent analyzing Lopez ’s second category does not necessitate the majority’s broad interpretation of the category. For example, in the Shreveport Rate Cases, the seminal opinion involving Lopez’s second category, the Supreme Court affirmed Congress’s power to regulate the instrumentalities’ operations and the setting of varying rates and taxes by different states, noting the importance of direct regulation and protection of the in-strumentalities of interstate commerce. Houston, East & West Texas Ry. Co. v. United States (Shreveport Rate Cases), 234 U.S. 342, 356-60, 34 S.Ct. 833, 58 L.Ed. 1341 (1914). Congress’s ability to regulate and protect instrumentalities of interstate commerce stems from the underlying rationale that harm to the instru-mentalities necessarily results in harm to inter-state commerce generally. See Southern Ry. Co. v. United States, 222 U.S. 20, 26-27, 32 S.Ct. 2, 56 L.Ed. 72 (1911) (upholding amendment to Safety Appliance Act, 27 Stat. at L. 531, chap. 196, U.S. Comp. Stat.1901, p. 3174, 32 Stat. at L. 943, chap. 976, U.S. Comp. Stat. Supp.1909, p. 1143, which provided for all locomotives, cars, and similar vehicles used on any railway engaged in interstate commerce to be equipped with certain designated safety appliances, regardless of whether the vehicles were used in moving intrastate or interstate traffic); Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 155-156, 91 S.Ct. 1357, 28 L.Ed.2d 686 (1971) (“[F]or example, the destruction of an aircraft (18 U.S.C. § 32), or ... thefts from interstate shipments (18 U.S.C. § 659)”); see also United States v. Cobb, 144 F.3d 319, 321 & n. 2 (4th Cir.1998) (recognizing that the federal carjacking statute fell within Lopez ’s second category because the statute regulated harm to automobiles). This underlying purpose, however, is not served where, as here, the legislation simply prohibits illegal or immoral use of an instrumentality but does not directly or indirectly regulate the instrumentality to protect it from harm resulting from the improper use.
Moreover, interpreting Lopez’s second category to include all improper uses of an instrumentality conflates Lopez’s second category with its first, which allows Congress to legislate to keep the channels of interstate commerce free from immoral or injurious uses. Because the mail fraud statute regulates the improper use of an instrumentality but in no way regulates and protects the instrumentality itself, I would hold that Lopez’s second category is inapplicable. Instead, I would evaluate the mail fraud statute under Lopez’s third category to determine whether the statute, as applied to PDS and Webb’s intrastate activities, has a substantial effect on interstate commerce.
II.
To constitute a proper exercise of Congress’ power over an intra-state activity under Lopez’s third category, the regulated activity must “arise out of or [be] connected with a commercial transaction, which viewed in the aggregate, substantially affects interstate commerce.” Lopez, 514 U.S. at 561, 115 S.Ct. 1624; see also United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 611, 120 S.Ct. 1740, 146 L.Ed.2d 658 (2000) *261{“Lopez’s review of Commerce Clause case law demonstrates that in those cases where we have sustained federal regulation of intrastate activity based upon the activity’s substantial effects on interstate commerce, the activity in question has been some sort of economic endeavor.”). I have no difficulty concluding that the furtherance of schemes devised for the purpose of defrauding others can be viewed as economic activity within the meaning of Lopez and Morrison. See Gibbs v. Babbitt, 214 F.3d 483, 491 (4th Cir.2000) (“[Ejconomic activity must be understood in broad terms.”). Further, in the aggregate, the intrastate use of interstate carriers to further fraudulent schemes has a substantial harmful effect on interstate commerce.* Thus, I would hold that the mail fraud statute, as applied to PDS and Webb’s intrastate activities, is constitutional because the fraudulent mailings have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.
III.
Because I believe that Congress did not intend the mail fraud statute to regulate and protect private and commercial interstate mail carriers as instrumentalities, I disagree with the majority’s holding in Section III A. 2-4 that Lopez’s second category renders the mail fraud statute constitutional under the Commerce Clause. Nevertheless, because the regulated activity at issue has a substantial effect on interstate commerce and is, therefore, a permissible exercise of Congress’s Commerce Clause power under Lopez’s third category, I concur in the judgment. I also concur in the remainder of the opinion.

 This is illustrated by the fraudulent activity in this case, wherein PDS and Webb used their commercial relationship with VDOT to defraud prime contractors on VDOT projects, some of which involved federal highways.