Court Opinion

ID: 9632492
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:17:13.054576+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:38:59.156902
License: Public Domain

TALLMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
One can follow a clear path and still be led astray. The panel has faithfully applied our court’s Taylor framework in holding a conviction for operating a chop shop under California Vehicle Code § 10801 is not an aggravated felony. I write separately because Congress could not have intended such a result. Were we writing on a clean slate, I would uphold the order of removal.
In considering the “generic” definition, we must consider what Congress had in mind when it wrote the term “theft offense” in 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a), and whether California’s chop shop statute would fit within its ambit. As it turns out, Congress has written a vehicle theft law. The National Motor Vehicle Theft Act, ch. 89, 41 Stat. 324 (1919), commonly known as the Dyer Act and currently codified at 18 U.S.C. § 2312 (2006), provides:
Whoever transports in interstate or foreign commerce a motor vehicle, vessel, or aircraft, knowing the same to have been stolen, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
In United States v. Turley, 352 U.S. 407, 77 S.Ct. 397, 1 L.Ed.2d 430 (1957), the Supreme Court explained Congress’s action in this arena:
By 1919, the law of most States against local theft had developed so as to include not only common-law larceny but embezzlement, false pretenses, larceny by trick, and other types of wrongful taking. The advent of the automobile, however, created a new problem with which the States found it difficult to deal. The automobile was uniquely suited to felonious taking whether by larceny, embezzlement or false pretenses.... The need for federal action increased with the number, distribution and speed of the motor vehicles until, by 1919, it became a necessity. The result was the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act.
Id. at 413-14, 77 S.Ct. 397. The Court then proceeded to consider what Congress meant when it used the word “stolen” in the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act. The Court adopted a broad reading of the term, encompassing not only common law larceny, but embezzlement and false pretenses as well:
A typical example of common-law larceny is the taking of an unattended automobile. But an automobile is no less ‘stolen’ because it is rented, transported interstate, and sold without the permission of the owner (embezzlement). The same is true where an. automobile is purchased with a worthless check, transported interstate, and sold (false pretenses). Professional thieves resort to innumerable forms of theft and Congress presumably sought to meet the need for federal action effectively rather than to leave loopholes for wholesale evasion.
Turley, 352 U.S. at 416-17, 77 S.Ct. 397.
Congress later expanded the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act with passage of 18 U.S.C. § 2314, commonly referred to as the National Stolen Property Act. See Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207, 218-20, 105 S.Ct. 3127, 87 L.Ed.2d 152 (1985). This provision encompassed an *756even broader swath of criminal theft activity, including the transportation of goods known to have been “stolen, converted or taken by fraud,” and transporting or traveling in interstate commerce “in the execution or concealment of a scheme or artifice to defraud that person ... of money or property.” 18 U.S.C. § 2314.
The National Motor Vehicle Theft Act, National Stolen Property Act, and Turley underscore that the federal understanding of theft offenses, and in particular vehicle theft offenses, has for at least fifty years included theft by false pretenses and fraud. In Taylor itself, the Supreme Court relied on Turley to highlight the preference for uniform national definitions over state definitions in interpreting federal statutes. Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 591-92, 595-96, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990); see United States v. Cure, 996 F.2d 1136, 1140 (11th Cir. 1993). Yet our circuit’s approach to Taylor categorical analysis ignores the guideposts found in federal law.
Each step toward today’s result was clear. We originally sought Congress’s meaning of “theft offense” by looking to common state definitions. See Taylor, 495 U.S. at 598, 110 S.Ct. 2143; United States v. CoronaSanchez, 291 F.3d 1201, 1205 (9th Cir.2002) (en banc). Next, we amalgamated the state definitions into our own test for what is a “theft offense.” See CoronaSanchez, 291 F.3d at 1205 (quoting Hernandez-Mancilla v. INS, 246 F.3d 1002, 1009 (7th Cir.2001)). Finally, today we compare the California chop shop statute to our judicially-crafted “generic” definition to see which is broader. Taken in isolation, each step in this esoteric process appears quite logical. Unfortunately, we never looked back to see whether our decision might be guided by something Congress itself had done. The result here is that engaging in an organized criminal enterprise that takes wrongfully-obtained automobiles, dismantles them, and sells the component parts on the black market, is not an aggravated felony for deportation purposes. An odd result indeed considering ninety years of federal legislation on this issue.