Court Opinion

ID: 9495241
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:57:53.325311+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:54.085206
License: Public Domain

JACOBS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The government has prosecuted as a Hobbs Act violation the stick-up of a private person in his own home. As the majority opinion recognizes, there is a considerable issue as to whether a de minimis effect on interstate commerce is enough to establish federal jurisdiction in such a *122case. Another circuit has held that the de minimis showing of interstate commercial impact that suffices for the robbery of a business is insufficient for the robbery of an individual at home because “the connection to interstate commerce is much more attenuated.” United States v. Wang, 222 F.3d 234, 238-40 (6th Cir.2000)(when the government seeks to “demonstrate that the robbery of an individual had a ‘realistic possibility’ of affecting interstate commerce ... the required showing is of a different order than in cases in which the victim is a business entity.”). See also United States v. Collins, 40 F.3d 95, 100 (5th Cir.1994) (reversing Hobbs Act conviction where defendant robbed executive of his car and cell phone, even though robbery likely prevented victim from attending business meetings and making phone calls). I respectfully dissent because I think that this rule is sound, and I would apply it in this case to reverse the conviction.
The majority has tried to sidestep this question by holding that because the victim here was a drug dealer who also had a shop that sold clothing (and beepers), and because he had $18,000 in his dwelling, the robbers were attempting to take “the cash of two businesses operating in commerce.” Majority Op. at 12. I see no evidence that the object of the robbery was the capital (or inventory) of a business; for all the evidence shows, the $18,000 was just money.
According to the majority, the $18,000 represented the “commingled” funds of the victim’s businesses (drugs, clothing and beepers) together with his personal cash. Majority Op. at 8. This observation amounts to less than may appear, because the verb “commingle” presupposes: [i] the initially separate character of several funds, an idea that (unsurprisingly) has no record support; and [ii] the mixing together of those funds (a mixing that would in any event refute rather than support the idea that any of the money retained the character of capital accounts for the victim’s businesses). The victim did not say what amounts came from what sources or were dedicated to particular uses. It cannot be supposed that he was required to escrow or sequester any part of the money for specified purposes or accounts. Like most of us, he had money that he could expend as he needed or pleased. No one would say that an individual’s checking account “commingles” the grocery money, the clothing fund and the mortgage, or that one’s pocket money commingles a fund for newspapers with a fund for lunch. True, $18,000 is a lot of money to have around the house (and may seem so particularly to federal judges), but in light of the forfeiture laws, it makes sense that the victim in this case would avoid depositing his money in a bank for safekeeping.
Even if the proceeds of the drug, clothing and beeper businesses could be said to have been commingled with the victim’s personal funds, the evidence failed to establish that the money in his safe on the night of the robbery represented the working capital of those businesses. The inference that it did rests wholly (and inadequately) upon the victim’s response, when asked what he would have done with the money, that he would have spent it on “drugs or clothing, whatever.”
This “whatever” testimony furnishes no basis for finding that the $18,000 was working capital of the victim’s businesses as opposed to (say) the savings from those businesses or other activities, or recent business proceeds that he intended to spend, or the undifferentiated money of someone whose funds would be exposed to forfeiture if deposited in -a bank. And even if the government is entitled to the inference that the “drugs [and] clothing” would be purchased for resale rather than *123consumption, the use of the catch-phrase “whatever” drains the response of any-meaning. ,
The majority reads the word “whatever” as a synonym for “et cetera” to reference personal expenditures. But the catchphrase “whatever” can mean (and predominantly does mean) any or all of the following: “whatever you say,” “whatever you want,” “you tell me,” “you care but I don’t,” “suit yourself,” or “who knows?”. The word is a shrug of indifference and indecision that specifies nothing and negates anything specific that precedes it.
In short, there is no testimony from the victim that will support, beyond a reasonable doubt, any inference as to how he was going to spend the $18,000. (Oddly, the majority seems to know more than the victim about his plans for this money.) I therefore think this appeal unavoidably presents the issue as to whether Hobbs Act jurisdiction can be based upon the de minimis impact on interstate commerce caused by the stick-up of a private individual in his own home. And I dissent because I believe that the answer to the question is no.