Court Opinion

ID: 9486760
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:59:07.188917+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:55.076399
License: Public Domain

MICHAEL, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
This is the meanest of cases, but I must dissent from Part II of the majority opinion, which affirms the convictions on the interstate arson count. I do not believe that living in a trailer up a remote hollow in Logan County, West Virginia, was ever meant to be an “activity affecting interstate or foreign commerce” under 18 U.S.C. § 844ffl.
In this case, the issue is not so much the extent of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause as it is what Congress actually said in § 844(i). The majority was blinded by its assumption that the commerce power is “nearly boundless” (maj. op. at 606) and therefore failed to take a hard look at the statutory language.
Section 844(i) makes it a crime to “maliciously” set fire to “any building ... used ... in any activity affecting interstate ... commeree ...” (emphasis added). The central question is: For what “activity” is the trailer “used”? In this ease there is only one answer. The “activity” the trailer is “used” for is daily living. The trailer is an owner-occupied dwelling, nothing more, nothing less. I cannot find any case which says that the simple act of living in one’s privately-owned dwelling is an activity affecting interstate commerce.
The majority sidesteps the real question by saying that the trailer is “used” in an “activity” that affects commerce because it consumes electricity from an interstate power grid. That reasoning twists the words of Congress too much. True, the trailer’s occupants use electricity. But electricity consumption is not the “activity” for which the trailer is “used.” Instead, the trailer is “used” only as a dwelling where its occupants carry out the general “activity” of daily living. Such a private use and activity should not be construed as affecting commerce.
Suppose in the next case under § 844(i) someone torches a trailer used as a hunting cabin that does not have electricity or any other public utility hookup. The activity there would only be recreational living. Yet under the majority’s reasoning, the government could have a case. Food — like the electricity here — is consumed in the trailer placed deep in the West Virginia woods. In that trailer, the hunters might eat Spam from Omaha, Moon Pies from Chattanooga, and Corn Flakes from Battle Creek. These foods move in interstate commerce and eating them (in a trailer targeted for torching) would be as much an activity affecting commerce as consuming electricity in this ease. *611The majority opinion thus “would seem to stretch the notion of interstate commerce beyond the limits of logic.” United States v. Hansen, 755 F.2d 629, 681 n. 4 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 884, 106 S.Ct. 105, 88 L.Ed.2d 85 (1985).
The Supreme Court and every circuit (except the Seventh and, today, ours) dealing with the issue has required at least some commercial tinge to the activity before holding that § 844(i) applies.
In Russell v. United States, 471 U.S. 858, 105 S.Ct. 2455, 85 L.Ed.2d 829 (1985), the Supreme Court recognized that if a residence had a second use, a use of commercial character, it could be the subject of an offense under § 844(i). Specifically, the Court held that the section applies to a two-unit apartment building used as rental property. The Court said that the rental of real estate is an activity that affects commerce, “recogniz[ing] that the local rental of an. apartment unit is merely an element of a much broader commercial market in rental properties.” Id. at 862, 105 S.Ct. at 2457. However, after reviewing the legislative history, the Russell Court could not have been clearer in saying that § 844(i) does not apply to all property:
In the floor debates on the final bill, although it was recognized that the coverage of the bill was extremely broad, the Committee Chairman, Representative Celler, expressed the opinion that “the mere bombing of a private home even under this bill would not be covered because of the question whether the Congress would have the authority under the Constitution.” In sum, the legislative history suggests that Congress at least intended to protect all business property, as well as some additional property that might fit that description, but perhaps not every private home.
By its terms, however, the statute only applies to property that is “used” in an “activity” that affects commerce....
Id. at 861-62, 105 S.Ct. at 2457.1
Under § 844(i), the targeted building, whether or not it is a private residence, must have “some relationship to an activity of commercial nature.” United States v. Andrini, 685 F.2d 1094, 1095-96 (9th Cir.1982); cf. United States v. Mayberry, 896 F.2d 1117, 1120 (8th Cir.1990) (“the interstate nexus [under § 844(i) ] is not met without a showing that there is indeed some interstate character to the property involved”) (emphasis added).
Some circuits have found the required link to interstate commerce because the targeted dwelling (1) was rented or was advertised for rent or sale, see United States v. Turner, 995 F.2d 1357 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 282, 126 L.Ed.2d 232 (1993) (rented single family residence); United States v. Parsons, 993 F.2d 38 (4th Cir.), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 114 S.Ct. 266, 126 L.Ed.2d 218 (1993) (same), or (2) was used in the resident’s business, see United States v. Shively, 927 F.2d 804 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 111 S.Ct. 2806, 115 L.Ed.2d 979 (1991) (property owned and mortgage paid by resident’s interstate trucking business, and used to put up truck drivers on layovers and to conduct business on weekends); United States v. Barton, 647 F.2d 224 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 857, 102 S.Ct. 307, 70 L.Ed.2d 152 (1981) (illegal gambling club run in private home). See also United States v. Voss, 787 F.2d 393 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 888, 107 S.Ct. 286, 93 L.Ed.2d 261 (1986) (finding, in dicta, connection to interstate commerce in a vacant residence owned by real estate business, being rehabilitated for resale, and insured by interstate carrier). In all of these cases, the residential property had at least some connection to a commercial venture.2
*612Before today, this circuit had also consistently required at least some link to commercial activity before allowing § 844(i) to be invoked. In United States v. Grossman, 608 F.2d 534 (4th Cir.1979), the defendants blew up a backhoe. In affirming the convictions, we recognized the “statutory breadth” of § 844(i), but nonetheless carefully detailed the “sufficient interstate nexus” established by the evidence. The backhoe had been twice sold across state lines, it was financed and insured by interstate companies, and although not in commercial use at the time it was destroyed, it was being advertised nationally for sale in the trade publication, Rock and Dirt. Id. at 537. More recently, in Parsons, we held that a private home rented out for over two years, although vacant at the time it was torched (the owner having thoughtfully evicted her tenant before hiring an arsonist) was, under Russell, “used in an activity that affects interstate commerce ” 993 F.2d at 40.3
Two courts have expressly refused to extend § 844(i) to private residences. See United States v. Mennuti, 639 F.2d 107 (2d Cir.1981) (concluding that two private homes, one of which was a rental property, which were built with out-of-state materials, financed by interstate lending institutions, and supplied with interstate utilities were not “used” in an activity affecting commerce); United States v. Montgomery, 815 F.Supp. 7 (D.D.C.1993) (holding that a private home in the District of Columbia supplied by interstate utilities, employing a housekeeper from Virginia, and being used by its resident as a place to prepare the curriculum for a seminar she taught in Virginia was not within the ambit of § 844(i)).4
Judge Friendly’s analysis in Mennuti, supra, explains why § 844(i) should not extend to an owner-occupied home that is strictly in private use:
To the ordinary mind, the destruction of two private dwellings would not constitute the destruction of buildings used in interstate or foreign commerce or in any activity affecting interstate or foreign commerce. The pictures summoned up by these words include such things as railroad stations, bus depots, airport buildings, and factories using raw materials from out of state or shipping products out of the state[.] Crossing the area between use in commerce and use affecting commerce, we reach such buildings as the offices of an insurance company receiving premiums from outside the state and disbursing benefits and loans across state lines, or of a company delivering within the state oil purchased from another company that had brought it into the state, or hotels and restaurants serving imported food to persons traveling from one state to another.
[A] residence is not used in interstate or foreign commerce simply because ... it received electric power and telephone service from companies engaged in or affecting commerce....
639 F.2d at 109-10 (citations omitted).5
The better reasoned decisions such as Mennuti allow only one conclusion in this case. A trailer does not have “interstate character” or affect commerce because its *613occupants use electricity in the routine noncommercial activities of daily life.
Torching the residence of an interracial couple is the most despicable of acts. Nevertheless, I respectfully dissent from Part II of the majority opinion because the trailer’s use here does not provide a jurisdictional basis for prosecuting the defendants under 18 U.S.C. § 844(i). I do concur in all other aspects of the majority opinion (including parts III through VII) that affirm defendants’ convictions and sentences for depriving the victims of their civil rights, willfully interfering with fair housing rights, and using fire in the commission of a felony.

. Even if Congress has the power under the Commerce Clause to reach arson committed against an owner-occupied private home, it did not choose to exercise that power through the words of § 844(i). See United States v. Ryan, 9 F.3d 660, 676 (8th Cir.1993) (Arnold, J., dissenting), vacated, reh'g era banc granted (8th Cir. Jan. 5, 1994).

. In United States v. Ryan, 9 F.3d 660, 666-67 (1993), the Eighth Circuit held that interstate commerce was affected for the purposes of § 844(i) when a building housing a defunct "Fun and Fitness Center” was leased by the owner (and arsonist) to an out-of-state corporation. The fact that this commercial building was supplied by natural gas from out of state was cited as a further jurisdictional basis because “the receipt and use of natural gas from across state *612borders is an activity directly affecting interstate commerce.” Id. However, the court explicitly "refuse[d] to extend the decision, as did the Seventh Circuit [in United States v. Stillwell, see infra note 4], to property which is purely private in nature, such as a privately owned home, used solely for residential purposes." Id. at 667.

. In Parsons, we were careful to "express no opinion on the circumstances required to bring a private residence that is not 'rental property' within the statute.” Id. at 40 n. 3. That care is thrown to the winds today.

. United States v. Stillwell, 900 F.2d 1104 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 838, 111 S.Ct. 111, 112 L.Ed.2d 81 (1990), is the only case I have found which holds that a private home’s use of an interstate utility (gas) was enough to trigger § 844(i). The Stillwell court admitted that its construction was "an extension of § 844(i)[.]" Id. at 1111. The extension is simply unsupportable because it goes beyond the plain scope of the statutory language.

.Judge Friendly’s conclusion in Mennuti that advertising a home for rental would not trigger § 844(i) must be discounted in light of Russell, which came later. However, the above quote from him still makes good sense and is consistent with Russell's message that some use of a commercial character is required.