Court Opinion

ID: 9463693
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:13:28.105017+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:14.239890
License: Public Domain

CRAVEN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Viewing the evidence and inferences from it in the light most favorable to the government, United States v. VanFossen, 460 F.2d 38, 40 (4th Cir. 1972), the jury could have fairly found that Behenna was an interstate gunrunner who pretended to be a South Carolina resident in order to buy handguns for his New York trade. The Congress has taken a dim view of the traffic and has extensively regulated it. 18 U.S.C. § 921, et seq. Behenna was indicted under the penalty section of the statute, 18 U.S.C. § 924, for violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(6), which makes it an offense to knowingly make any false statement intended or likely to deceive the dealer with respect to any material fact going to the lawfulness of the sale. Because of 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(5), the sales made to Behenna were unlawful if the dealer knew or had reasonable cause to believe Behenna resided in a state other than South Carolina. Therefore Behenna lied to the dealer. He gave as his “residence address” a large vacant lot on Highway 76 which he did not even own. Rabbits reside in fields. Persons do not. Since Behenna knew that he had to claim residence in South Carolina (the dealer had told him so), he obviously intended to falsely claim residence in South Carolina in a place fit for moles and birds but not for humans.
The indictment charged him with having falsely certified that he was a resident of South Carolina when, in truth and fact, as he well knew, he was not. To so certify violates the statute. 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(6).
The district judge fairly and correctly charged the jury that the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt “that the defendant knowingly made a false or fictitious statement ... in connection with the firearm, which was likely or intended to deceive the dealer with respect to any material fact.” Appendix at 101. The judge defined the meaning of residence, and if he erred, it was in favor of the defendant. After correctly telling the jury that “it is possible for a person to have more than one place of residence,” Appendix at 110, giving as an example one who resides in South Carolina permanently but who has a summer home in Florida or in the North Carolina mountains, he then framed a question for the jury highly favorable to the defendant’s contention: “Did the defendant really intend to become a resident of South Carolina when he obtained his voter registration and when he purchased the firearm in question?” That instruction was more than the defendant was entitled to. It put into the case the defendant’s subjective intent which relates to domicile, not residence. Behenna’s intention with respect to establishing a residence in South Carolina would become important if domicile were the question, but, even then, only if there was some evidence suggesting that he had done something toward making South Carolina his home or one of his homes, e.g., renting a room, or buying a house, or taking household effects or clothing and leaving them in a place of habitation to which he expected to return. See *578Wehrle v. Brooks, 269 F.Supp. 785 (W.D.N.C.1966). Here, there was not one scintilla of evidence that Behenna had done any such thing — other than to register to vote, and I would judicially notice there is no residency requirement to get a voter registration certificate in the State of South Carolina, i.e., one does not have to be there any particular length of time in order to get such a certificate.
The definitions of residence are innumerable and varied. See 37 Words and Phrases, “Residence” (1950). But generally, it is necessary simply to establish an abode, álbeit a temporary one. Residence “is a physical fact while domicile is a matter of intention.” Bouvier’s Law Dictionary 2920 (3d revision) (emphasis added).
My brothers contrive what seems to me an untenable theory: that since Behenna was not a lawyer and the definition of residence is not an easy one, he may have honestly believed that obtaining a voter registration card made him a resident of South Carolina. Why, then, would Behenna represent to the dealer that he resided on a vacant lot on Highway 76? Why not simply present the voter registration certificate and stop with that? All agree that Behenna made a false statement when he said he resided on a vacant lot, and, since he suggested no other possible place of abode, it is clear to me that he made a false statement when he represented himself to be a resident of South Carolina, and that he knew it when he made it.
I concurred in Hedgecoe supra, and would do so again. As the Eighth Circuit later noted in Cody v. United States, 460 F.2d 34, 38 n. 4, Hedgecoe had certified that he was not prohibited by the provisions of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 from receiving a firearm, which involved an interpretation of law. I agree with the distinction made by the Eighth Circuit that the question in Hedgecoe was whether the defendant understood the law, and that the question in this case and in Cody was whether the defendant understood the facts. My brothers would convert this into a case requiring legal understanding because the indictment, rather than simply alleging that Behenna falsified his address (which they concede would have supported the conviction), alleged instead that Behenna certified in writing “that he was a resident of the State of South Carolina.” They ignore the fact that part of that very certification in writing was his filling in a blank calling for “residence address.” It is not unfair or unreasonable to read the indictment as alleging that Behenna claimed as his place of residence an open field in South Carolina when he “then and there well knew” it was in fact, if not uninhabitable by man, at least uninhabited by him.
The indictment and the district judge’s charge, read together, made Behenna’s state of mind — his knowledge of the falsity of his statement as to residence — a defense. I would not go further and hold, as does the panel, that he was entitled to an instruction — on these facts — that if he honestly and reasonably believed that he could legally purchase the guns the jury should acquit. To so charge puts into a regulatory measure enacted in the interest of public safety an idea of mens rea, or evil intent, that properly belongs in other areas of the criminal law. See United States v. Park, 421 U.S. 658, 95 S.Ct. 1903, 44 L.Ed.2d 489 (1975); United States v. Freed, 401 U.S. 601, 91 S.Ct. 1112, 28 L.Ed.2d 356 (1971); United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U.S. 277, 64 S.Ct. 134, 88 L.Ed. 48 (1943). It suffices under this statute and this indictment that Behenna lied about his place of residence — falsely claiming it to be an open field in South Carolina.