Court Opinion

ID: 9477286
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:19:12.033553+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:47.656076
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. GIBSON,
Circuit Judge, dissenting, joined by LAY, Chief Judge, and HEANEY and FAGG, Circuit Judges.
I respectfully dissent.
The court today makes clear that it views the language and structure of the ACCA, 18 U.S.C.App. § 1202(a), as inconclusive as to whether the Act is a sentencing enhancement or a new offense. While the court states that the weight of legislative history supports the sentencing enhancement interpretation, it concludes that the House report is not entirely free from ambiguity. The court essentially resolves the issue only by looking to the statements of Senator Specter and Representative Hughes.
I believe that the language and structure of the Act demonstrate creation of a separate offense, and that this conclusion is borne out by the legislative report when it is carefully studied. While, taken literally, the statements of Senator Specter and Representative Hughes are at variance with both the language and structure of the Act and the report, I do not believe they were meant to address the question before the court, or if they were, that they could override the language of the ACCA as enacted.
As the court today recognizes, the issue in this case has been considered by a number of the circuits. I find most persuasive the views of Judge Rubin of the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Davis, 801 F.2d 754 (5th Cir.1986), and Judge Rosenn of the Third Circuit in his dissent in United States v. Hawkins, 811 F.2d 210, 223-25 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 110, 98 L.Ed.2d 69 (1987). We need not repeat in detail the strong and convincing reasoning articulated by those judges.
The language and structure of the ACCA itself indicates that the ACCA is an independent criminal offense, rather than simply a sentence enhancer engrafted onto section 1202(a)(1). The ACCA describes the acts it proscribes without any reference to section 1202(a)(1), except to specify *579which courts’ convictions are relevant. Moreover, as in Garrett v. United States, 471 U.S. 773, 105 S.Ct. 2407, 2413, 85 L.Ed.2d 764 (1985), the existence of a discrete offense is indicated by the fact that the provision carries its own penalty, “rather than a multiplier of the penalty established for some other offense.” As noted by Judge Rubin in United States v. Davis, 801 F.2d at 756, the ACCA also lacks the typical indicia of sentence-enhancing statutes, which usually provide sentencing procedures and are titled as sentencing provisions. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 3575 (1982) (repealed effective 1986) and 21 U.S.C. § 849 (1982) (repealed effective 1987). Nothing in the statutory language suggests that the ACCA is anything other than an independent provision for a new criminal offense. See also Davis, 801 F.2d at 755-56; United States v. Hawkins, 811 F.2d at 223-25 (Rosenn, J., dissenting).
The legislative history also supports the conclusion that the ACCA creates a new offense. The House report on the final version of the ACCA discussed “ ‘enhancing’ this offense,” “ ‘enhancing’ an existing Federal crime”, and “adding a new offense.” H.R.Rep. No. 1073, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 5-6 (1984), U.S.Code Cong. & Admin. News 1984, pp. 3664-3666. It is true that the report, as the court’s opinion points out, also refers to “enhanced penalty provisions.” H.R.Rep. No. 1073 at 5. See also id. at 1 (“enhanced penalties”). However, the language of the report, while seemingly containing this ambiguity, when taken in context demonstrates that Congress intended to enhance the offense or crime, rather than the penalty.
The evolution of the Act in Congress, as described in the House report, was from a wide-ranging provision with no interstate commerce moorings to a traditional, federal interstate-commerce related crime; nothing in this evolution addressed the question of changing the bill from its original status as a new crime to that of a penalty enhancement. The report first outlines the history of the earlier bills, S. 52, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. (1983), and H.R. 1627, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. (1983), which were patently designed to create a new crime, but which drew widespread objection because they created a federal offense for any robbery or burglary committed with a firearm if the defendant had two or more previous robbery or burglary convictions, without any reference to the weapon being possessed, received, or transported in interstate commerce. In response to federalism objections that the bills would make federal crimes of purely local robberies and burglaries, Chairman Hughes suggested enacting the basic ACCA provisions as a markup to existing 18 U.S.C.App. § 1202(a), which had an interstate commerce limitation. H.R. Rep. No. 1073 at 4.
Nothing in the legislative process as described in the report indicates an intent to change the ACCA from its original status as a new offense to a penalty-enhancer; the lack of an interstate commerce limitation was a different problem, and there is no reason to believe Congress’ resolution of that problem has any bearing on the question before us. Moreover, study of the report shows that the drafters used the “enhanced offense” and “enhanced crime” language where they were engaged in careful legal analysis of the effect of the bill. Under the heading “Sectional Analysis,” the report makes clear that “section 2 amends 18 U.S.C.App. § 1202(a) by adding a new offense * * H.R.Rep. No. 1073 at 6, U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 1984, p. 3666. The references to “enhanced penalty” are more casual, occurring in more general discussions in the report. I read the House report as clearly evidencing Congress’ realization that it was the crime or offense that was being enhanced by creating a higher grade of the crime, rather than merely adding to the sentencing provisions. See Davis, 801 F.2d at 756.
Similarly, the statements of Senator Specter and Representative Hughes should be seen as limited to discussion of the federalism concerns that plagued the earlier bills. I believe that the language, structure, and legislative history of the statute is clear. The comments of Chief Justice Rehnquist in Regan v. Wald, 468 U.S. 222, 104 S.Ct. 3026, 3035, 82 L.Ed.2d 171 (1984), aptly fit this case:
*580Oral testimony of witnesses and individual Congressmen, unless very precisely directed to the intended meaning of particular words in a statute, can seldom be expected to be as precise as the enacted language itself. To permit what we regard as clear statutory language to be materially altered by such colloquies, which often take place before the bill has achieved its final form, would open the door to the inadvertent, or perhaps even planned, undermining of the language actually voted on by Congress and signed into law by the President.
Congress, by its use of language and structure, showed it intended to enact exactly what the House Committee Report describes — a separate offense. This articulated intent makes rational the fifteen-year sentence without probation or parole, as opposed to the maximum two-year sentence for a first time offender. Judge Rosenn forcefully argued in his Hawkins dissent that to apply this statute as a sentencing enhancement violates the due process clause. 811 F.2d at 223-24. We should avoid interpreting the statute to require this result.
In United States v. Jackson, 824 F.2d 21, 25 (D.C.Cir.1987), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 715, 98 L.Ed.2d 665 (1988), the court reasoned that the ACCA did not create a separate offense because, if it did, the government would have to prove the three prior felony convictions before the jury, and this would violate the congressional policy against putting a defendant’s previous convictions before the jury. 824 F.2d at 25. However, section 1202(a)(1) itself calls for proof of a prior conviction as an element of the crime, United States v. Blade, 811 F.2d 461, 466 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 124, 98 L.Ed.2d 82 (1987), and it is not erroneous to allow proof of more than one previous felony in a section 1202(a)(1) case. Id. Obviously, Congress does not invariably choose against allowing introduction of past felony convictions, and that “policy” should not weigh on either side in this argument.
Since the language and the structure of the ACCA and its history indicate that it creates a separate offense on which neither Cloyd nor Rush’s jury was instructed, I would reverse.