Court Opinion

ID: 9499377
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:47:02.87761+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:28.318787
License: Public Domain

PREGERSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I believe that Congress lacked the authority to enact the DNA Act under the Commerce Clause. Accordingly, I must dissent from Part E of the court’s opinion and from the court’s judgment.
Every law enacted by Congress must be based on a power enumerated in the Constitution. See Marburg v. Madison, 1 Crunch 137, 5 U.S. 137, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803). The Constitution gives Congress power “[t]o regulate Commerce ... among the several States.” U.S. Const, art. I, § 8. Congress enacted the DNA Act expressly under its commerce power. See H.R.Rep. No. 106-900(1), at 16. The modern interpretation of Congress’s regulatory authority under the Commerce Clause is expansive but not without limits. See United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 557, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995). Courts may invalidate a congressional enactment upon a plain showing that Congress has exceeded its constitutional bounds. See id. at 577-78, 115 S.Ct. 1624.
As the court’s opinion properly recognizes, the Supreme Court has “identified three general categories of regulation in which Congress is authorized to engage under its commerce power:” (1) “the channels of interstate commerce;” (2) “the in-strumentalities of interstate commerce, and persons or things in interstate commerce;” and (3) “activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.” Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 16-17, 125 S.Ct. 2195, 162 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005) (citing Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 150, 91 S.Ct. 1357, 28 L.Ed.2d 686 (1971); NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 37, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893 (1937)). To be valid, a statute need only relate to one category. See Reno v. Condon, 528 U.S. 141, 148-49, 120 S.Ct. 666, 145 L.Ed.2d 587 (2000). The first and third categories of Congressional authority to regulate instate commerce are not implicated by the facts of this case. Thus, there is a need to determine whether the passage of the DNA Act is grounded on a valid exercise of Congressional authority to regulate interstate commerce under the second category.
The district court found that the second category applies to this case and that the relevant case law supports the government’s contention that DNA samples taken under the Act by drawing blood from parolees are “things in interstate commerce.” Reynard, 220 F.Supp.2d at 1174. The Supreme Court recently analyzed this category in Condon. In Condon, South Carolina challenged the constitutionality of the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (“DPPA”), 18 U.S.C. §§ 2721-25, Pub.L. No. 103-322, 108 Stat. 1796 (1994 ed. and Supp. IV), which regulates and restricts the ability of states and private actors to sell, use, or *1025disclose the personal identifying data in department of motor vehicle (“DMV”) records without a driver’s consent. See Condon, 528 U.S. at 143, 120 S.Ct. 666. The Court noted that this personal identifying information is used by a variety of actors engaged in interstate commerce — from insurers, manufacturers, and marketers, to various public and private entities involved in matters related to interstate motoring. See id. at 148, 120 S.Ct. 666. The Court concluded that drivers’ information is “an article of commerce,” and that “its sale or release into the interstate stream of business is sufficient to support congressional regulation.” Id.
The government contends that the DNA Act, like the DPPA, regulates the release and use of personal identifying data. The DNA Act seeks to regulate the collection of DNA samples as well as the transportation of such samples to the FBI, where the information is included in CODIS and made available to law enforcement personnel in all fifty states. See Reynard, 220 F.Supp.2d at 1173 (“[T]he DNA Act essentially regulates the collection and distribution of data — i.e., the DNA of certain federal offenders — for distribution and use around the country.”).
The district court found that Condon suggests that Congress is empowered to regulate “things” in interstate commerce, even where such “things” are disclosed or released into the stream of commerce without any sale or other economic transaction. See id. at 1171-72 (citing Condon, 528 U.S. at 148, 120 S.Ct. 666); see also United States v. Cummings, 281 F.3d 1046, 1048 (9th Cir.2002) (“Congress’s Commerce Clause authority is broad enough to stretch beyond the simple regulation of commercial goods traveling in interstate and foreign commerce to include regulation of non-economie activities.... ”). Because the DNA Act seeks to regulate and protect an instrumentality (or thing) in interstate commerce, the district court found that passage of the DNA Act fell within Congress’s regulatory authority. See Reynard, 220 F.Supp.2d at 1174 (citing Lopez, 514 U.S. at 557-58, 115 S.Ct. 1624).
But, Condon is readily distinguishable from the instant case. As explained above, the DPPA regulates the release and use of drivers’ personal information held by the DMV. In enacting the DPPA, the federal government sought to regulate a “thing” (information) that was already in the stream of commerce and was placed into the stream of commerce by local or state governments. See Condon, 528 U.S. at 148, 120 S.Ct. 666.
In contrast, by passing the DNA Act, Congress is attempting to regulate something that it — and nobody else — has put into the stream of commerce. Reynard’s DNA — while housed in his body — is not a “thing” in interstate commerce until the government, under the DNA Act, compels the DNA’s extraction by drawing blood from a parolee and places the DNA in the stream of commerce for analysis. Congress may not bootstrap its authority to regulate purely local activity under the Commerce Clause. If the government is allowed to regulate anything that it puts into the stream of commerce, its powers under the Commerce Clause would be without limit. “To be sure, ‘the power to regulate commerce, though broad indeed, has limits.’ ” Citizens Bank v. Alafabco, Inc., 539 U.S. 52, 58, 123 S.Ct. 2037, 156 L.Ed.2d 46 (2003) (quoting Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U.S. 183, 196, 88 S.Ct. 2017, 20 L.Ed.2d 1020 (1968)). By arguing that Condon authorizes Congress to regulate Reynard’s DNA only after the government has placed it in interstate commerce, the government puts the proverbial cart before the proverbial horse.
*1026Because passage of the DNA Act cannot be justified under any of the three “categories of regulation in which Congress is authorized to engage under its commerce power,” Raich, 125 S.Ct. at 2205, I agree with Reynard that passage of the DNA Act exceeds Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause.1

. In addressing similar challenges to the DNA Act, the Tenth Circuit found that it need not determine whether the DNA Act was properly enacted under the Commerce Clause because it reasoned that the "Act is a legitimate exercise of congressional power under the Necessary and Proper Clause.” United States v. Plotts, 347 F.3d 873, 877 (10th Cir.2003). The Plotts court concluded that the DNA Act either constitutes a civil sanction for the violation of a criminal law, see id. at 878, or a law enforcement tool, see id. at 879, and that the Necessary and Proper Clause provides a means of implementation and enforcement, see id. at 878-79. I believe that the Tenth Circuit misapprehends the Necessary and Proper Clause.
The Necessary and Proper Clause allows Congress to enact laws, subject to other constitutional constraints, "that bear a rational connection to any of its enumerated powers.” Id. at 878 (quoting United States v. Edgar, 304 F.3d 1320, 1326 (11th Cir.2002)). To be sure, "[w]here necessary to make a regulation of interstate commerce effective, Congress may regulate even those interstate activities that do not themselves substantially affect interstate commerce.” Raich, 545 U.S. at 35, 125 S.Ct. 2195. However, as discussed earlier, the DNA Act does not bear a rational relationship to the Commerce Clause and it is not necessary to effectively regulate interstate commerce because there is no interstate commerce in federal supervised releasees’ DNA. Congress’ reliance on the Commerce Clause in enacting the DNA Act is an attempted rationalization for regulating "things” that the government itself — and only the government — has put into the stream of commerce. See M’Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 17 U.S. 316, 423, 4 L.Ed. 579 (1819) (rejecting congressional use of the Necessary and Proper Clause, "under the pretext of executing its powers, [to] pass laws for the accomplishment of objects not intrusted to the government”).