Court Opinion

ID: 9560840
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:57:28.81354+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:14.854760
License: Public Domain

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge, specially
concurring:
I reluctantly concur in Judge McKeown’s opinion. I recognize that, under the precedent cited in the opinion, both in and out-of-circuit, “superseding” has been given a meaning in the context of a criminal indictment that is the direct opposite of its meaning in every other known context.1 This is, unfortunately, not the first occasion on which we have construed words in this manner. If “slight” may be equated with “substantial” and “another state” may include the “same state,” see United States v. Saavedra-Velazquez, No. 08-10078, 578 F.3d 1103, 1110-11 (9th Cir. Aug. 21, 2009) (Reinhardt, J., specially concurring), then we should not be surprised that a superseding indictment does not supersede anything at all. I do not favor depriving words of all *933meaning simply in order to reach a desired legal result. Here, I see no reason, rational or otherwise, to treat the word “superseding” as meaning “not replacing,” as we have done before and as we do again here. An abundance of judicial creativity has been devoted to tasks like interpreting “another” to mean “the same”;2 “slight” to mean “substantial”;3 and “superseding” to mean “not superseding.”4 I propose redirecting that creativity to better uses, such as finding terms that actually mean what they appear to mean. We could start by using “second indictment” or “first additional indictment” to describe an indictment that follows the original indictment, but does not “supersede” it. Were we to do so, we might earn more public trust and respect than we are accorded now. Any additional amount, no matter how slight, i.e. substantial, would be most welcome.5

. See, e.g., Random House Dictionary of the English Language 1428 (1979) (defining "supersede” as “to replace ... set aside ... [or] supplant”).

. See Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706, 723-24, 119 S.Ct. 2240, 144 L.Ed.2d 636 (1999) (reaffirming the holding of Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1, 10 S.Ct. 504, 33 L.Ed. 842 (1890), that the Eleventh Amendment prohibition of suits “against one of the United States by Citizens of another State” applies to suits brought against a state by a citizen of the same state).

. See United States v. Sarbia, 367 F.3d 1079, 1086 (9th Cir.2004) (holding that "the terms ‘some act’ or ‘slight act,' as used in the Nevada caselaw, have the same operational meaning as 'substantial step,’ as used in the traditional common-law definition of attempt”); see also United States v. Saavedra-Velazquez, No. 08-10078, 578 F.3d 1103 (9th Cir. Aug. 21, 2009) (applying Sarbia to California's definition of attempt); cf. United States v. Rivera-Ramos, No. 08-10174, 578 F.3d 1111 (9th Cir. Aug. 21, 2009) (adopting the Second Circuit’s conclusion that "[t]he difference between the federal law’s requirement of a 'substantial step’ and the New York law’s requirement of 'dangerous proximity’ is ... ‘more semantic than real’ ”) (quoting United States v. Fernandez-Antonia, 278 F.3d 150, 162-63 (2d Cir.2002)).

. See Opinion at 929-30 (collecting cases).

. Other ways, of course, would be to describe our function more honestly than representing that we simply apply law to facts and nothing more, and by acknowledging frankly that empathy is truly an essential quality for a jurist.