Court Opinion

ID: 9487359
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:14:37.34021+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:13.566277
License: Public Domain

STEPHEN F. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
with whom SILBERMAN and BUCKLEY, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting:
Nearly all of our sister circuits say that mere possession of a firearm does not constitute “use” under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). In the same breath, however, all — joined today by this court — allow conviction without evidence of the defendant’s firing, brandishing, displaying or actively using the firearm in any way.1 In joining the other circuits, the court undoubtedly simplifies our previous vague multifaetored balancing test for review of § 924(c) cases for sufficiency of the evidence. And the majority is surely right that it is perfectly appropriate to overturn statutory interpretations where, as here, the precedent rejected is “fundamentally flawed”, Critical Mass Energy Project v. NRC, 975 F.2d 871, 876 (D.C.Cir.1992) (en banc), and of course especially where, again as here, the precedent acts as “a positive detriment to coherence and consistency in the law ... because of inherent confusion created by an unworkable decision”. Id. (quoting Patterson v. Mc*121Lean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 173, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 2371, 106 L.Ed.2d 132 (1989)). In recent years, our cases have produced such inconsistency largely because we have failed to identify a clear definition of the term “use” of a firearm; it is that failure that has led to our frequent second-guessing of juries. In attempting to mend the incoherence of our previous approach by articulating a “proximity” plus “accessibility” test, however, the court has in effect diluted “use” to mean simply possession with a floating intent to use. In all but the rarest case, then, a defendant will be subject to punishment under § 924(c) if guilty of a drug trafficking offense and, while committing the offense, was in possession of a firearm. I think the wording, history and context of § 924(c) call for a different bright-line rule — one requiring active “use” rather than possession with a contingent intent to use.
* * * * * #
Section 924(c) imposes five additional years of punishment on
Whoever, during and in relation to any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime ... uses or carries a firearm.
18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1) (emphasis added).
The word “use” in ordinary language normally implies activity. Cf. United States v. McFadden, 13 F.3d 463, 467 (1st Cir.1994) (Breyer, J., dissenting) (“the ordinary meanings of the words ‘use’ and ‘carry’ ... connote activity beyond simple possession”). The majority asserts that a gun placed in one’s drawer with an intent to use it in the event of an intruder is, “in common parlance, [] a gun ‘used’ for domestic protection”. Maj.Op. at 114. This is possible in some contexts, but they are contexts in which the fact of “use” is assumed. Q: “What do you use the gun for?” A: “I use it to protect my family.” In that hypothetical the answerer accepts the questioner’s premise that the gun is in some sense used. But as the question assumes something that is not established, the answerer might well go back to the premise: A: “Actually, I’ve never had to use it. I keep it here in case of an intruder.”
In support of its sweeping idea of the plain meaning of “use”, the majority cites Astor v. Merritt, 111 U.S. 202, 4 S.Ct. 413, 28 L.Ed. 401 (1884). The case illustrates the importance of context. The plaintiff, William Astor, sought a refund of customs duties of $1,880 (in 1878 dollars) paid on clothing he had purchased in Europe for personal use but had not yet worn at the time he reentered the United States. The statute provided an exemption for “[wjearing apparel in actual use and other personal effects (not merchandise), ... of persons arriving in the United States”, id. at 203, 4 S.Ct. at 413 (citing § 2505 of the Revised Statutes, p. 489, 2d ed.), and the government had prevailed below by arguing that “actual use” required that each particular item of clothing have been worn before importation. The Court instead found that the term “actual use” must be read in light of the basic distinction drawn by the statute between articles that are “personal effects of [the traveller], and not merchandise, and not for sale,” id. at 214, 4 S.Ct. at 419, and thus sought a meaning for “actual use” that, “while it comports with the ordinary habits of passengers and travellers, will not open the door for fraud.” Id. Any meaning that required past wearing was plainly incompatible with that purpose. No such incompatibility with statutory purpose is created by reading “use” in § 924(c) to require some sort of active use, as opposed to simple possession with a view to possible future use. Aside from Astor’s emphasis on context, its expansive interpretation of the word “use” to protect travellers hardly raises the same issues as does an expansive interpretation of a term in a criminal statute.
Part of that context consists of § 924(e)’s origins. The initial version, passed in 1968, reads as follows:
Whoever—
(1) uses a firearm to commit any felony which may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, or
(2) carries a firearm unlawfully during the commission of any felony which may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment for not less than one year nor more than 10 years.
Pub.L. No. 90-351, 82 Stat. 233 (1968). In its 1968 form, the statute suggests that Con*122gress had active employment of a weapon in mind. The phrase “uses to commit ” implies that the defendant derived actual service from the weapon in completing an unlawful act. This service might take the form of injuring one’s opposition by firing it, intimidating opponents by displaying or brandishing it, or offering it in exchange to complete an unlawful commercial transaction. It does not, however, imply merely potential service — i.e., keeping it hidden from view, intending to use it only if a contingency should arise. For the gun in that instance has not actually been used to commit the crime; its only function is to make successful completion more probable under contingencies that have not arisen.
In 1984, Congress made two basic changes: it raised the sentence enhancement to exactly five years and it both broadened and narrowed the scope of predicate offenses from “any felony” to “any crime of violence”. At the same time, it collapsed the two clauses into one, substituting the phrase “during and in relation to” the predicate crimes for the earlier provisions linking the firearm to the predicate crimes. The statute then read:
Whoever, during and in relation to any crime of violence, including a crime of violence which provides for an enhanced punishment if committed by the use of a deadly or dangerous weapon or device, for which he may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, uses or carries a firearm, shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such crime of violence, be sentenced to imprisonment for five years.
Pub.L. No. 98-473, 98 Stat. 2138 (1984). Congress gave two reasons for rewriting the statute, neither of which pertained to the scope of the term “use” or “carry”. S.Rep. No. 225, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 1, 312-13, reprinted in 1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3182, 3490-91 (“Part D of title X represents a complete revision of subsection 924(c) to overcome the problems with the present subsection discussed [below] ”) (emphasis added). First, it sought to clarify the statute’s approach to suspended and concurrent sentences. Second, it wished to overcome the Supreme Court’s holdings in Simpson v. United States, 435 U.S. 6, 98 S.Ct. 909, 55 L.Ed.2d 70 (1978), and Busic v. United States, 446 U.S. 398, 100 S.Ct. 1747, 64 L.Ed.2d 381 (1980), which negated the use of § 924(c) when another firearm penalty enhancement provision, such as that for armed robbery under 18 U.S.C. § 2113(d), applied. The government points to no evidence that in 1984 Congress sought to expand the meaning of “use”. Moreover, Congress’s adoption of the connective phrase “during and in relation to” could not have been intended to adjust for evolving problems of passive drug crimes; Congress only added drug trafficking offenses as predicate crimes in 1986. Pub.L. No. 99-308, 100 Stat. 456 (1986).
Moreover, the Senate Report relating to the 1984 change gave examples of use, both of them active: “pointing it at a teller or otherwise displaying it whether or not it is fired”. S.Rep. No. 225, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 1, 314, reprinted in 1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3182, 3492. 'While these examples were not presented as exhaustive, they provide insight into the general class of behavior Congress had in mind. Even more indicative is the Senate Report’s commentary on the “carry” provision which reads:
Evidence that the defendant had a gun in his pocket but did not display it, or refer to it, could nevertheless support a conviction for “carrying” a firearm in relation to the crime if from the circumstances or otherwise it could be found that the defendant intended to use the gun if a contingency arose or to make his escape_ Moreover, the requirement that the firearm’s use or possession be “in relation to” the crime would preclude its application in a situation where its presence played no part in the crime, such as a gun carried in a pocket and never displayed or referred to in the course of a pugilistic barroom fight.
Id. at 3492 n. 10 (emphasis added). The reference to intended use shows that Congress envisioned the “carry” provision to punish a defendant who did not “display” or otherwise actively use the firearm, but who had at least taken the active step of carrying the gun on a drug trafficking foray. Thus the Senate evidently saw “use” as a comparatively narrow term, with “carry” picking up eases of an alternative type of activity, where *123the defendant did not actively “use” the weapon. The majority has turned this relation around, giving “use” such a broad meaning as to leave no apparent role for “carry”.
Another element of § 924(c)’s context is the kindred provision, § 924(d), adopted in its original form in 1968, four months before the original § 924(c) “use or carry” provision. Pub.L. No. 90-351, 82 Stat. 233 (1968). The current version of § 924(d) provides for forfeiture of firearms “used in any knowing violation” of certain enumerated offenses (such as unlawful interstate transport and false statements in acquiring firearms), and of firearms “intended to be used” in other enumerated offenses (such as crimes of violence and drug trafficking crimes). 18 U.S.C. § 924(d)(1). Thus Congress, clearly quite alert to the distinction between firearms “used” in commission of a crime and merely “intended” for such use, provided for forfeiture before the weapon was used in drug trafficking, to nip the risk in the bud, apparently saving § 924(e)’s five years additional imprisonment for cases of actual use. “[U]sing a firearm” should not have a “different meaning in § 924(c)(1) than it does in § 924(d)”. Smith v. United States, — U.S. -,-, 113 S.Ct. 2050, 2057, 124 L.Ed.2d 138 (1993).
Smith also observed, to be sure, that “it is clear from § 924(d)(3) that one who transports, exports, sells or trades a firearm ‘uses’ it within the meaning of § 924(d)(1)”. Id. The Court inferred this from the specific statutes as to which § 924(d)(1) creates forfeiture liability, including, for example, 18 U.S.C. § 922(a)(5) (unlicensed transfer of a firearm to a resident of a different state); id. § 922(i) (importation of firearms). See Smith, — U.S. at-n. *, 113 S.Ct. at 2057 n. *. All of these, some of which the Court generalized under the word “transport”, will nearly always involve active manipulation of the firearm. Given § 924(c)’s explicit “carry” provision, the parallelism inferred by the Court in Smith may not be complete. That does little, I think, to undermine § 924(d)’s value in evidencing congressional alertness to the difference between “use” and intent to use.
Congress was also explicitly conscious of the relation between § 924(c) and 18 U.S.C. § 2113(d), which provides sharply increased penalties for one who, committing a bank robbery or theft in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a) or (b), “assaults any person, or puts in jeopardy the life of any person by the use of a dangerous weapon or device”. 18 U.S.C. § 2113(d) (emphasis added). The Senate Report in 1984 mentioned § 2113(d) and made clear that it intended that some defendants might be subject to both enhancements. S.Rep. No. 225, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 1, 314, reprinted in 1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3182, 3492. In his brief before the Supreme Court in McLaughlin v. United States, 476 U.S. 16, 106 S.Ct. 1677, 90 L.Ed.2d 15 (1986), the Solicitor General of the United States used that history to sketch out a view of the intended meanings of “use” and “carry” in § 924(c). In McLaughlin, where the court held that an unloaded gun could be a “dangerous weapon” under that statute, the Solicitor General argued that weapons that are concealed and unmentioned do not suffice for conviction under the aggravated robbery statute (18 U.S.C. § 2113(d)) because “the robber has not ‘used’ the weapon to ‘assault’ anyone”. Brief for the United States at 19, McLaughlin (No. 85-5189). He went on to press the point about the relative narrowness of the word “use” and the parallelism between § 924(c) and § 2113(d):
It appears that Congress is of the view that something more than the carrying of a gun is required to establish its use. In response to this Court’s decisions[,] Simpson v. United States, 435 U.S. 6 [98 S.Ct. 909, 55 L.Ed.2d 70] (1978), and Busic v. United States, 446 U.S. 398 [100 S.Ct. 1747, 64 L.Ed.2d 381] (1980), Congress amended 18 U.S.C. [§] 924(c) in 1984 to provide an additional penalty of five years’ imprisonment for anyone who “uses or carries” a firearm during a crime of violence, including a “crime of violence which provides for an enhanced punishment if committed by the use of a deadly or dangerous weapon or device.” Thus, the additional ptenalty of Section 924(c) now applies even though the defendant is convicted under a provision like Section 2113(d) that provides for an enhanced penalty for the use of a *124dangerous weapon or device. In spelling that out in the legislative history, in fact, Congress used Section 2113(d) as an example, stating that a person convicted under Section 2113(d) would also be subject to five years’ imprisonment under Section 924(c) if the dangerous weapon or device was a firearm. S.Rep. 98-225, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. 313-314 (1983). In its example, the Senate report referred to “using a gun * * * by pointing it at a teller or otherwise displaying it.” Id. at 314 [1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3492], In a footnote, the report noted that “evidence that the defendant had a gun in his pocket but did not display it, or refer to it, could nevertheless support a conviction for ‘carrying’ a firearm” under Section 924(c). S.Rep. 98-225, supra, at 314 n. 10 [1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3492]. Thus, Congress appeared to understand, as the language of Section 924(c) suggests, that there is a distinction between carrying a gun and using a gun.
Id. at 19 n. 18 (emphasis added). Of course we owe no special deference to the views of the Solicitor General. Cf. Crandon v. United States, 494 U.S. 152, 177-78, 110 S.Ct. 997, 1011, 108 L.Ed.2d 132 (1990) (Scalia, J., concurring) (no deference owed to Department of Justice on interpretation of criminal statutes as they are “not administered by any agency but the courts”). Where he strongly presses a narrow reading of specific language in a criminal statute, however, it is certainly some evidence that that interpretation is a reasonable one, suggesting that, in the presence of another arguably reasonable reading, we are at least confronting a statutory ambiguity that under the rule of lenity should be resolved in favor of the narrow construction. In United States v. Ray, 21 F.3d 1134 (D.C.Cir.1994), we relied heavily on the Solicitor General’s McLaughlin brief, saying, in our exposition of the word “use”, “It is the brandishing or displaying, in other words, that the Court [in McLaughlin] said heightened the danger”. Id. at 1137. We concluded that a defendant might “use” a concealed weapon (within the meaning of § 2113(d)) when he actively exploits its existence by threatening people with it. Id. at 1140-42. I would preserve the parallel treatment between “use” in both § 924(c) and § 2113(d), and require comparable activity.2
Nothing in Smith precludes limiting “use” to active employment. Its statement that “§ 924(e)(l)’s language sweeps broadly”, — U.S. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 2054, means only that the proscribed use of firearms is not limited to the obvious or typical ways in which they may assist in the commission of a crime. Rather, a gun may be “used” regardless of whether it acts as an instrument to shoot, to bludgeon, or for exchange. That is, whether a firearm is “used” does not depend on whether it is employed in the customary way or a more creative way. But it does depend on whether the gun is employed at all, and nothing the Court said expands “use” beyond active employment. The observation that a gun “at least must ‘facilitate] or ha[ve] the potential of facilitating’”, id. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2059 (emphasis added), does not support an expanded definition of “use”; the Court made that point in reference to the separate “in relation to” requirement.
While the majority attempts to fine-tune the concept of facilitation (and thereby, use) through its twin guideposts of proximity and accessibility, the ultimate result is that possession amounts to “use” because possession enhances the defendant’s confidence.3 See Maj.Op. at 113, 116; McFadden, 13 F.3d at *125466. Had Congress intended that, all it need have mentioned is possession. Cf. 18 U.S.C. § 929(a) (additional punishment for one who “uses or carries a firearm and is in possession of armour piercing ammunition”) (emphasis added). In this regard, the majority’s test is either so broad as to assure automatic affirmance of any jury conviction or, if not so broad, is unlikely to produce a clear guideline. Thus, if the new standard proves anything less than a carte blanche for conviction, it will lead to the same sort of continuous and vacillating review of jury verdicts that our past jurisprudence has yielded and that the court so rightly deplores.
‡ ‡ ^ ‡ #
Under my view of “use” there can be no serious argument that either Robinson or Bailey “used” the weapons as to which they were charged under § 924(c). But Bailey plainly transported his firearm in the trunk of his car, and the jury in his case was instructed to find whether the defendant had “used or carried” the weapon. Thus the question arises whether transportation of a firearm under these circumstances can sustain a conviction for carrying a firearm.
We have found “carry” to cover a gun carried, not on the defendant’s person, but on that of a confederate and within easy reach of the defendant himself. United States v. Joseph, 892 F.2d 118, 126 (D.C.Cir.1989) (defendant at all times “within a few steps of, and usually no more than an arm’s span from, the firearm”). We have also held that a jury could find that a defendant’s control over confederates who carried weapons was enough to establish constructive possession, United States v. Harrison, 931 F.2d 65, 71 (D.C.Cir.1991), and thus upheld the conviction (which alternatively might have been sustained on a theory of aiding and abetting). The same understanding embraces the defendant who transports a weapon by motor vehicle and has as ready access to the weapon as he would if it were in his pocket. See, e.g., United States v. Cardenas, 864 F.2d 1528, 1533 (10th Cir.1989) (the gun “was within effortless reach of his hands, more accessible than if it were in his own pocket”). Both readings are consistent with the basic concept of carrying a weapon on one’s person (hand, pocket or holster), extended to catch the criminal who uses either confederates or mechanical transport (car, truck, ship or plane) to keep the firearm moving with him. In the motor vehicle case, the location of the weapon can render it as readily accessible as one held by an associate — if it is on hand for instant use, e.g., tucked under the driver’s seat or resting on the dashboard or front passenger’s seat.
I do not believe § 924(c) can properly be extended from these situations to that of the defendant who, like Bailey, transports the weapon in his car but is not shown to have had immediate access at any time while he was committing his drug trafficking offense. The effect would be to have § 924(c) embrace virtually every instance where a drug trafficker transports a weapon; in view of Congress’s provision of a separate penalty in an adjacent section for anyone who “transports” a weapon with intent to commit a crime punishable by as much as a year’s imprisonment, 18 U.S.C. § 924(b), that seems an improbable duplication. Cf. Cardenas, 864 F.2d at 1534-35 (rejecting equation of “carry” with “transport”). Rather, consonant with an active notion of “use”, with the Senate Report’s example of a weapon carried in the defendant’s pocket, see supra at 122, and with the principle of the “constructive possession” cases that the defendant may use the gun on a moment’s notice, the word “carry” must entail immediate availability. Thus, the gun locked in the trunk of Bailey’s car was not accessible enough to support a conviction for carrying the gun during and in relation to his possession with intent to distribute drugs.
That is not to say that a defendant arrested with a gun in his trunk may never be convicted under § 924(c). Realistically, drug dealers often operate out of car trunks, returning from a distribution station to replenish drugs, deposit cash or retrieve a weapon. If the government presents evidence that the defendant handled the weapon by placing it in the ear “during and in relation to” action taken in the commission of a predicate offense, that evidence would be sufficient .to sustain a conviction. Alternatively, there may be cases where the government can *126prove that the defendant bought the firearm such a short time before arrest on the drug trafficking offense as to sustain an inference (beyond a reasonable doubt) that he must have been handling it simultaneously with commission of the drug offense. But as a gun can obviously rest in a trunk for a long period, the mere fact of a gun’s presence there, coupled with the defendant’s use of the car for drug distribution, does not give rise to an inference of the necessary simultaneity of immediate access to the weapon (in a context of moving it about) and commission of the predicate crime. As there appears to be no evidence in the record against Bailey beyond his drug trafficking and the location of the weapon in the trunk, his conviction cannot be sustained on such a ground.
The majority’s expansive view of “use” virtually emasculates the role of the term “carry” in the statute. If “use” is understood to require real activity (such as brandishing, displaying or threatening), and “carry” to require conveying the firearm, coupled with immediate ability to put it to active use, both terms will have a meaningful yet distinct content, consistent with the language, context and legislative history of § 924(c).
I would reverse the convictions of both Bailey and Robinson.

. Maj. Op. at 113-14. For a representative sampling, see United States v. McFadden, 13 F.3d 463, 465 (1st Cir.1994); United States v. Breckenridge, 782 F.2d 1317, 1322-23 (5th Cir.1986); United States v. Lyman, 892 F.2d 751, 753 (8th Cir.1989); United States v. Harmon, 996 F.2d 256, 258 (10th Cir.1993); United States v. Poole, 878 F.2d 1389, 1393 (11th Cir.1989). Other circuits are more honest. United States v. Meggett, 875 F.2d 24, 28 (2d Cir.1989) ("mere possession of a gun can constitute use”); United States v. Torres-Rodriguez, 930 F.2d 1375, 1385 (9th Cir.1991) (same).

. The majority points out that the crime at issue in McLaughlin and Ray, bank robbery involving assault or jeopardizing a person’s life, inherently involves force or the threat of force, and suggests that while reading "use” narrowly to cover only open brandishing or verbal allusions made sense there, a broader reading is necessary for a furtive crime such as possession of drugs. Maj. Op. at 115 n. 1. But the point of the Solicitor General’s brief in McLaughlin was that Congress intended a consistent (and relatively narrow) reading of the word "use” in both contexts, § 2113(d) and the relatively generic § 924(c).

. Occasionally, and quite understandably, a court taking the majority’s view will forget even the veneer of a requirement of more than possession in connection with the predicate crime. “[Defendant] was also convicted of two or three counts of use or possession of a firearm in connection with drug trafficking crimes in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)." United States v. Windom, 19 F.3d 1190, 1192 (7th Cir.1994) (emphasis added).