Court Opinion

ID: 9913024
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-26 18:00:44.604958+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:06:53.150630
License: Public Domain

FOR PUBLICATION

     UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
          FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                      No. 22-50144

                  Plaintiff-Appellee,        D.C. No. 2:21-cr-
                                               00491-SB-1
    v.

JEFFREY FORTENBERRY,                             OPINION

                  Defendant-Appellant.

           Appeal from the United States District Court
               for the Central District of California
         Stanley Blumenfeld, Jr., District Judge, Presiding

               Argued and Submitted July 11, 2023
                      Pasadena, California

                     Filed December 26, 2023

    Before: Gabriel P. Sanchez and Salvador Mendoza, Jr.,
      Circuit Judges, and James Donato, * District Judge.

                    Opinion by Judge Donato

*
 The Honorable James Donato, United States District Judge for the
Northern District of California, sitting by designation.
2                      USA V. FORTENBERRY

                          SUMMARY **

                          Criminal Law

    The panel reversed former congressman Jeffrey
Fortenberry’s conviction for making false statements, in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2), without prejudice to
retrial in a proper venue, and remanded.
    Federal agents interviewed Fortenberry at his home in
Lincoln, Nebraska, and his lawyer’s office in Washington,
D.C., in connection with an investigation into illegal
campaign contributions made by a foreign national through
conduit donors. At the time, Fortenberry was a member of
the House of Representatives from Nebraska. The federal
agents were based in Los Angeles, California, where the
illegal contribution activity was said to have occurred. At
the end of the investigation, Fortenberry was charged with
making false statements during the interviews in violation of
Section 1001, but not with a violation of the federal election
laws. He was tried and convicted by a federal jury in Los
Angeles.
    Fortenberry contended that the district court incorrectly
denied his motion to dismiss the case because venue was
improper in the Central District of California. The district
court determined that a Section 1001 violation occurs not
only where a false statement is made but also where it has an
effect on a federal investigation. The panel concluded that
an effects-based test for venue of a Section 1001 offense has
no support in the Constitution, the text of the statute, or

**
  This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has
been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.
                   USA V. FORTENBERRY                   3

historical practice. The panel therefore reversed
Fortenberry’s conviction without prejudice to retrial in a
proper venue. The panel did not reach Fortenberry’s
contention of instructional error.

                       COUNSEL

Kannon K. Shanmugam (argued), William T. Marks, and
Matteo Godi, Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP,
Washington, D.C.; Jing Yan, Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton
& Garrison LLP , New York, New York; Glen E. Summers,
Bartlit Beck LLP, Denver, Colorado; John L. Littrell, Jr.,
Bienert Katzman Littrell Williams LLP, San Clemente,
California; Ryan V. Fraser, Bienert Katzman Littrell
Williams LLP, Los Angeles, California; for Defendant-
Appellant.
Alexander P. Robbins (argued), Assistant United States
Attorney, Criminal Appeals Section; James J. Buxton and
Susan Har, Assistant United States Attorneys, Public
Corruption and Civil Rights Section; Bram M. Alden,
Assistant United States Attorney, Criminal Appeals Section
Chief; Mack E. Jenkins, Assistant United States Attorney,
Criminal Division Chief; E. Martin Estrada, United States
Attorney; United States Attorney’s Office, Los Angeles,
California; for Plaintiff-Appellee.
4                    USA V. FORTENBERRY

                         OPINION

DONATO, District Judge:

    Federal agents interviewed Jeffrey Fortenberry at his
home in Lincoln, Nebraska, and his lawyer’s office in
Washington, D.C., in connection with an investigation into
illegal campaign contributions made by a foreign national
through conduit donors. At the time, Fortenberry was a
member of the House of Representatives elected to multiple
terms by voters in Nebraska’s 1st congressional district. The
federal agents were based in Los Angeles, California, where
the illegal contribution activity was said to have occurred.
At the end of the investigation, Fortenberry was charged
with making false statements during the interviews in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001, but not with a violation of the
federal election laws. He was tried and convicted by a
federal jury in Los Angeles.
    Fortenberry appeals his conviction on two grounds. He
contends that the district court incorrectly denied his motion
to dismiss the case because venue was improper in the
Central District of California. He also appeals a declined
jury instruction as error.
    The Constitution plainly requires that a criminal
defendant be tried in the place where the criminal conduct
occurred. The district court determined, and the government
urges on appeal, that a Section 1001 violation occurs not
only where a false statement is made but also where it has an
effect on a federal investigation. We conclude that an
effects-based test for venue of a Section 1001 offense has no
support in the Constitution, the text of the statute, or
historical practice. Consequently, we reverse Fortenberry’s
conviction without prejudice to retrial in a proper venue.
                          USA V. FORTENBERRY                               5

                          BACKGROUND
    Former congressman Jeffrey Fortenberry is a Nebraskan
who spent decades in elective office. A resident of Lincoln,
Nebraska, he served on the Lincoln City Council. Beginning
in 2004, he was elected to several terms in Congress,
representing Nebraska’s 1st district.
    In October 2015, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), in conjunction with other federal agencies, began
investigating a foreign national suspected of improperly
financing several U.S. political campaigns. 1 This multi-
agency investigation was run by the FBI’s Los Angeles field
office, located in the Central District of California.
    Over the course of the investigation, the FBI came to
believe that the foreign national had made conduit
contributions to Fortenberry’s campaign, namely at a
fundraiser held for Fortenberry in Los Angeles in 2016. In
June 2018, a cooperating witness placed a telephone call to
Fortenberry with an FBI agent secretly listening in. The
witness told Fortenberry that the foreign national was
probably the source of $30,000 of donations that Fortenberry
had received at the fundraiser.
    About nine months later, in March 2019, two federal
agents from Los Angeles traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska, and
interviewed Fortenberry in his home there. During the
interview, Fortenberry, who did not have a lawyer present,
denied awareness of any foreign or conduit contributions to
his campaign. After the interview, Fortenberry retained an
attorney who contacted the FBI and was referred to the U.S.

1
  Federal election law prohibits foreign nationals from contributing
directly or indirectly to a campaign for federal, state, or local office. See
52 U.S.C. § 30121.
6                    USA V. FORTENBERRY

Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. The
attorney set up a second meeting between Fortenberry and
federal investigators that occurred in July 2019 in
Washington, D.C. During the meeting, Fortenberry said
again that he was not aware of any illegal contributions to
his campaign.
    On October 19, 2021, Fortenberry was indicted in the
Central District of California on one count of scheming to
falsify and conceal material facts in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§1001(a)(1), and two counts of making false statements in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2). Fortenberry moved to
dismiss the case for improper venue; the district court denied
his motion. The case went to a jury trial, and Fortenberry
was found guilty on all counts. The jury found that
Fortenberry had made false statements in the March 2019
interview in Nebraska and the July 2019 interview in
Washington, D.C. The district court sentenced Fortenberry
to two years of probation, 320 hours of community service,
and a $25,000 fine. Fortenberry resigned his seat in
Congress.
                       DISCUSSION
I. Venue, Vicinage, and Section 1001 Essential Conduct
    Fortenberry’s main contention on appeal is that venue
was improper in the Central District of California and the
district court should have granted his motion to dismiss on
that ground. We review de novo the legal basis of the district
court’s venue decision. See United States v. Hui Hsiung, 778
F.3d 738, 745 (9th Cir. 2015); United States v. Corona, 34
F.3d 876, 878 (9th Cir. 1994).
   “Questions of venue in criminal cases . . . are not merely
matters of formal legal procedure.” United States v.
                      USA V. FORTENBERRY                        7

Johnson, 323 U.S. 273, 276 (1944). They present policy
concerns deeply rooted in the Constitution. “Aware of the
unfairness and hardship to which trial in an environment
alien to the accused exposes him,” id. at 275, the Framers
drafted the Venue Clause, which “mandates that the ‘Trial of
all Crimes . . . shall be held in the State where the . . . Crimes
shall have been committed.’” Smith v. United States, 599
U.S. 236, 242–43 (2023) (quoting U.S. Const. art. III, § 2,
cl. 3). This command is reinforced by the Vicinage Clause
of the Sixth Amendment, which “guarantees ‘the right
to . . . an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the
crime shall have been committed.’” Id. at 244–45 (quoting
U.S. Const. amend. VI).
    Congress did not expressly designate the venue of a
Section 1001 offense, and so the “locus delicti,” the location
of the crime, “must be determined from the nature of the
crime alleged and the location of the act or acts constituting
it.” United States v. Anderson, 328 U.S. 699, 703 (1946)
(internal citations omitted); see also United States v.
Rodriguez-Moreno, 526 U.S. 275, 279 (1999) (“[A] court
must initially identify the conduct constituting the offense
(the nature of the crime) and then discern the location of the
commission of the criminal acts.”). “To determine the
nature of the crime, we look to the essential conduct
elements of the offense.” United States v. Lukashov, 694
F.3d 1107, 1120 (9th Cir. 2012) (internal quotations and
citation omitted).
    Section 1001 of Title 18 imposes criminal liability on
“whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the
executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government
of the United States, knowingly and willfully . . . (1) falsifies,
conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a
material fact” or “(2) makes any materially false, fictitious,
8                    USA V. FORTENBERRY

or fraudulent statement or representation.” 18 U.S.C.
§ 1001(a). “A conviction under § 1001 requires the
government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the
defendant: 1) made a statement, 2) that was false, and 3)
material, 4) with specific intent, 5) in a matter within the
agency’s jurisdiction.” United States v. Selby, 557 F.3d 968,
977 (9th Cir. 2009).
     The question of venue in this case is answered by
determining which of these statutory elements is the
essential conduct of a Section 1001 offense, and which is a
“circumstance element” that is necessary for a conviction but
not a factor in deciding the location of the offense for venue
purposes. Rodriguez-Moreno, 526 U.S. at 280 n.4. To
illustrate, in a money laundering case, trial was proper where
the laundering alleged in the indictment had occurred, but
not where the criminal activity generating the illicit currency
(i.e., the unlawful distribution of cocaine) had taken place,
because the relevant statutes “interdict[ed] only the financial
transactions . . . [and] not the anterior criminal conduct that
yielded the funds allegedly laundered.” United States v.
Cabrales, 524 U.S. 1, 3–4, 7 (1998). In other words, “[t]he
existence of criminally generated proceeds was a
circumstance element of the offense but the proscribed
conduct—defendant’s money laundering activity—occurred
‘“after the fact” of an offense begun and completed by
others.’” Rodriguez-Moreno, 526 U.S. at 280 n.4 (quoting
Cabrales, 524 U.S. at 7). In drawing this distinction between
essential conduct elements and circumstance elements here,
our reading of Section 1001 is guided, but not limited, by the
principle that the verb or verbs used in a criminal statute have
                        USA V. FORTENBERRY                           9

“value as an interpretive tool” to “determine the nature of the
substantive offense.” Id. at 280. 2
    The text of the statute plainly identifies the essential
conduct of a Section 1001 offense to be the making of a false
statement. As the Tenth Circuit has observed, Section
1001(a)(2) “does not contain a venue clause, nor is there any
language suggesting any ‘essential conduct element’ other
than making a false statement.” United States v. Smith, 641
F.3d 1200, 1207 (10th Cir. 2011) (quoting Rodriguez-
Moreno, 526 U.S. at 280). It is the act of uttering a false
statement that is the criminal behavior essential to liability
under Section 1001.
     The district court, citing United States v. Salinas, 373
F.3d 161, 166–67 (1st Cir. 2004), and United States v.
Coplan, 703 F.3d 46, 79 (2d Cir. 2012), went a step further
to hold that materiality was also an essential conduct
element. It concluded that venue could properly include any
“district in which the effects of the false statement [were]
felt.” Salinas, 373 F.3d at 167. This was because
materiality, in the district court’s view, necessarily depends
on how a listener would perceive the utterance, wherever the
listener might be located.
    The government urges the same analysis here. It argues
that the district court was right to hold that materiality is an
“essential conduct element” of Section 1001, and because
conduct is “often defined by its effects,” there is “nothing
anomalous about prosecuting a false statement based on the

2
  Neither party has suggested that the venue analysis under Section
1001(a)(2) differs from the analysis under Section 1001(a)(1), at least
with respect to the facts presented in this case. For the purposes of
resolving this appeal, the Section 1001(a)(2) analysis is dispositive.
10                  USA V. FORTENBERRY

location of the government action that the statement could
potentially influence.’”
    This argument misses the mark. It is certainly true that
Congress did not intend to criminalize trivial falsehoods
under Section 1001, which the materiality requirement
addresses. Materiality is a key element of the statutory
definition of the crime that prosecutors must prove, with all
the other elements, to obtain a conviction. See Mathis v.
United States, 579 U.S. 500, 504 (2016) (“‘Elements’ are the
‘constituent parts’ of a crime’s legal definition—the things
the ‘prosecution must prove to sustain a conviction.’”)
(quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 634 (10th ed. 2014)).
    But the inquiry that determines venue is different. It
turns on the action by the defendant that is essential to the
offense, and where that specific action took place.
Materiality is not conduct because it does not require
anything to actually happen. We have previously held that
materiality requires only that a statement have the capacity
to influence a federal agency. As we stated:

       [T]he materiality requirement of a § 1001
       violation is satisfied if the statement is
       capable of influencing or affecting a federal
       agency. The false statement need not have
       actually influenced the agency, and the
       agency need not rely on the information in
       fact for it to be material. In other words, the
       “test is the intrinsic capabilities of the false
       statement itself, rather than the possibility of
                     USA V. FORTENBERRY                    11

       the actual attainment of its end as measured
       by collateral circumstances.”

United States v. Serv. Deli Inc., 151 F.3d 938, 941 (9th Cir.
1998) (internal citations omitted) (emphasis in original).
    We have made a similar point in other Section 1001
cases. See United States v. King, 735 F.3d 1098, 1108 (9th
Cir. 2013) (“A misstatement need not actually influence the
agency decision in order to be material; propensity to
influence is enough.”); see also United States v. Green, 745
F.2d 1205, 1208 (9th Cir. 1984) (“Under section 1001, the
false statement need not be made directly to the government
agency; it is only necessary that the statement relate to a
matter in which a federal agency has power to act.”); United
States v. King, 660 F.3d 1071, 1081 (9th Cir. 2011) (“A false
statement need not be made to a federal agent to support a
conviction under § 1001(a)(2).”). The upshot of our prior
holdings is that the false statement offense is complete when
the statement is made. It does not depend on subsequent
events or circumstances, or whether the recipient of the false
statement was in fact affected by it in any way.
    Consequently, materiality is not an essential conduct
element of a Section 1001 violation. The Supreme Court’s
holding in Rodriguez-Moreno does not compel a different
result. There, the Court vacated on venue grounds a
conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1) for using or carrying
a firearm “during and in relation to any crime of violence.”
The crime of violence in that case was a kidnapping, and the
Third Circuit had determined that venue was proper only in
the district where the defendant used or carried a firearm,
and not in the districts where the kidnapping occurred.
Rodriguez-Moreno, 526 U.S. at 278. The Supreme Court
reversed. It concluded that using and carrying a firearm, as
12                   USA V. FORTENBERRY

well as the related crime of violence, i.e., the kidnapping,
were both essential conduct elements of Section 924(c)(1).
Id. at 280–81 (“Section 924(c)(1) criminalized a defendant’s
use of a firearm ‘during and in relation to’ a crime of
violence; in doing so, Congress proscribed both the use of
the firearm and the commission of acts that constitute a
violent crime.” (emphasis in original)).
    Section 1001 is different. It proscribes the act of making
a materially false statement. Materiality is not separate
conduct akin to kidnapping or another action by a criminal
defendant, and so cannot play a role in determining the locus
delicti for purposes of venue.
II. Decisions of Other Circuits
     The government says there is a “wall” of circuit authority
in its favor, to the effect that “the essential conduct
prohibited by § 1001(a)(2) is the making of a materially
false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement.” Coplan, 703 F.3d
46, 79 (2d Cir. 2012) (emphasis added); see also United
States v. Oceanpro Indus., Ltd., 674 F.3d 323, 329 (4th Cir.
2012); United States v. Ringer, 300 F.3d 788, 791 (7th Cir.
2002). These courts concluded that, because “the essential
conduct constituting the offense inherently references the
effects of that conduct,” Oceanpro, 674 F.3d at 329, venue
is proper where the effects of the false statements may be
felt, namely wherever the relevant investigation or official
proceeding is located.
    This “wall” is less imposing than the government would
have it because the Tenth and Eleventh Circuits have
reached the same result we reach here. Smith, 641 F.3d at
1207; United States v. John, 477 F. App’x. 570, 572 (11th
Cir. 2012) (unpub.). It is also the case that the Supreme
Court has left open the broader questions of whether and
                     USA V. FORTENBERRY                    13

when an effects-based venue might be permissible. See
Rodriguez-Moreno, 526 U.S. at 279 n.2 (“The government
argues that venue also may permissibly be based upon the
effects of a defendant’s conduct in a district other than the
one in which the defendant performs the acts constituting the
offense. . . . [W]e express no opinion as to whether the
Government’s assertion is correct.”).
    The logic of the circuit cases cited by the government is
questionable for all the reasons already discussed. The
Second Circuit upheld venue in New York for false
statements made in Tennessee because “[p]roving the
materiality of [the defendant’s] false statements in
Tennessee necessarily requires evidence that those
statements were conveyed to or had an effect on the IRS
investigators working in the Southern District of New
York.” Coplan, 703 F.3d at 79 (citing Oceanpro, 674 F.3d
at 329). Why that is “necessarily” so is left unsaid, other
than a passing remark to the effect that it just makes sense.
Id. Coplan is also in tension with United States v. Rodgers,
466 U.S. 475 (1984), which held that a false statement to the
FBI need not affect an existing investigation to run afoul of
Section 1001. In addition, while the Second Circuit in
Coplan recognized that a defendant’s liability under Section
1001 depended on the “capacity of [his] statements to
influence the decisionmaking body at issue,” 703 F.3d at 79,
it nonetheless thought that proof of actual effect would be
required. We have concluded otherwise in Service Deli, 151
F.3d at 941, and similar cases.
    In Oceanpro¸ the Fourth Circuit analogized Section 1001
to the Hobbs Act and obstruction-of-justice statutes to affirm
a Section 1001 conviction in Maryland for false statements
made in the District of Columbia. See Oceanpro, 674 F.3d
at 329–30. The court stated that, “just as Congress defined
14                   USA V. FORTENBERRY

the effects of conduct in the Hobbs Act and 18 U.S.C.
§ 1503, it defined the effects in § 1001 to include the element
of materiality,” and that “proving materiality necessarily
requires evidence of the existence of the federal
investigation in Maryland and the potential effects of [the
defendant’s] statement on that investigation.” Id. at 329.
The court determined that venue was proper because “the
District of Maryland had a substantial connection to [the
defendant’s] conduct and to the charges based on that
conduct against him.” Id.
    This discussion is not persuasive. The analogy of
Section 1001(a)(2) to the Hobbs Act or obstruction of justice
is doubtful. For example, “in a prosecution under the Hobbs
Act, venue is proper in any district where commerce is
affected because the terms of the statute itself forbid
affecting commerce in particular ways.” United States v.
Bowens, 224 F.3d 302, 313 (4th Cir. 2000) (citing 18 U.S.C.
§ 1951(a) (punishing anyone who “in any way or degree
obstructs, delays, or affects commerce” by robbery)). In a
similar vein, the obstruction of justice statute expressly
prohibits “endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the
due administration of justice,” 18 U.S.C. § 1503(a), and so
venue might be proper in the jurisdiction where the affected
judicial proceeding is being held, see United States v. Smith,
22 F.4th 1236, 1243–44 (11th Cir. 2022) (discussing United
States v. Barham, 666 F.2d 521 (11th Cir. 1982)).
    To be sure, Section 1001, the Hobbs Act, and the
obstruction statute contemplate that the proscribed conduct
might have an effect on something else (a matter within the
jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial
branches; interstate commerce; the administration of
justice). But that is where the similarities end. The Hobbs
Act expressly forbids conduct affecting commerce in
                     USA V. FORTENBERRY                    15

particular ways, and the obstruction statute conduct affecting
court cases. Section 1001, by contrast, proscribes making
materially false statements—not actually affecting or
interfering with a federal agency’s investigation through the
making of the statements.
    The likelihood of highly problematic venue outcomes is
another reason to decline the government’s effects test.
Consider the facts here. An investigation was staffed by
agents in California. In connection with the investigation,
the agents traveled to Nebraska and Washington, D.C. to
interview Fortenberry, who made false statements in those
locations. The only connection between Fortenberry and the
Central District of California, where he was tried and
convicted, was that the agents worked in a Los Angeles
office. What if the investigation had been conducted by
federal agents in Los Angeles and Oklahoma? What if the
government had transferred the investigation to agents in
Massachusetts? What if an investigating agent simply
moved from Los Angeles to Hawaii for personal reasons but
maintained a lead role in prosecuting the case? What if the
government chose to base every single Section 1001
investigation in Washington, D.C., where federal agencies
are headquartered? The government’s effect test would say
that venue is proper in any one of those locations,
irrespective of where the false statement was actually made.
This would be an odd and troubling result for an offense that
does not require an actual effect on the investigators.
    This outlandish outcome cannot be squared with the
Constitution. The Venue and Vicinage Clauses command
that a trial be held where the crime was committed. This is
not necessarily a boon to a defendant. Even though the
“most convenient trial venue for a defendant would
presumably be where he lives, the Venue Clause is keyed to
16                   USA V. FORTENBERRY

the location of the alleged ‘Crimes,’” and “does not allow
variation for the convenience of the accused.” Smith, 599
U.S. at 243 (cleaned up). But the clauses equally “preclude
trial” in a locale where the crime did not occur. Id. at 244
(emphasis in original).
    The Venue and Vicinage Clauses may not be disregarded
simply because it suits the convenience of federal
prosecutors.        The government emphasizes that
(1) Fortenberry’s fundraiser where the conduit contributions
were made was held in Los Angeles, and (2) he knew when
his counsel set up the meeting in Washington, D.C. that the
investigation was being conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s
Office in the Central District of California. But the location
of investigators in the Central District, or the presence there
of witnesses to the campaign contribution events, do not
speak to the locus delicti of Fortenberry’s Section 1001
offenses.
    So too of the fact that Fortenberry was aware, at the time
of his interview in Washington, D.C., that his statements
would be taken back to and analyzed by the U.S. Attorney’s
Office in the Central District of California. We are not at
liberty to create a new temporal element for Section 1001—
tied to defendant’s awareness at the time the statement at
issue was made—that is not evident in the plain text of the
statute. Moreover, a complex case may involve investigators
spread across several jurisdictions. To take again the Los
Angeles and Oklahoma scenario, adding a temporal element
would still have permitted Fortenberry to be tried in
Oklahoma simply because an investigator based there
happened to be sitting in Fortenberry’s living room in
Nebraska when he spoke to the agents.
                        USA V. FORTENBERRY                          17

III. Continuing Offenses
   As an alternative approach, the government suggests that
venue was proper in the Central District of California under
18 U.S.C. § 3237(a), because communications can be
prosecuted as “continuing offenses” that “span space and
time.” We disagree. 3
    To start, the government’s reliance on Section 3237
simply begs the question of venue under Section 1001.
Section 3237 permits the prosecution of “any offense against
the United States begun in one district and completed in
another, or committed in more than one district . . . in any
district in which such offense was begun, continued, or
completed.” 18 U.S.C. § 3237(a). This text says nothing
about where a Section 1001 defendant like Fortenberry
began or completed the offense. It merely invites the next
step of determining the essential conduct of a Section 1001
crime. As discussed, this analysis does not come out in favor
of the effects test the government advocates here.
      The government’s heavy reliance on our decision in
United States v. Angotti, 105 F.3d 539 (9th Cir. 1997), is also
misplaced. The district court did not cite Angotti, but it is a
centerpiece of the government’s case on appeal. Angotti
involved an appeal, on venue grounds, of a conviction under
18 U.S.C. § 1014, “which punishes anyone who ‘knowingly
makes any false statement . . . for the purpose of influencing
. . . the action’ of a federally insured institution.” Id. at 542.
The defendant made false statements to a financial
institution through an agent in the Northern District of
California, but was tried and convicted in the Central District

3
 The district court did not reach the question whether venue was proper
under the government’s continuing offense theory.
18                    USA V. FORTENBERRY

of California where the institution was located. Id. at 541.
The panel concluded that a false statement under Section
1014 was a continuing offense because “the act of making”
the false statement continued until the statements were
received by the person whom they were ultimately intended
to influence. Id. at 543.
    Angotti is readily distinguishable from the circumstances
here. Section 1014 expressly contemplates the effect of
influencing the action of a financial institution. No such
language is used in Section 1001. To determine whether a
statement is misleading in a material way, we probe the
“intrinsic capabilities of the false statement itself, rather than
the possibility of the actual attainment of its end as measured
by collateral circumstances.” Serv. Deli Inc., 151 F.3d at
941 (citing United States v. Salinas-Ceron, 731 F.2d 1375,
1377 (9th Cir. 1984), vacated on other grounds by 755 F.2d
726 (9th Cir. 1985)). Further, we have distinguished Angotti
for this reason in other criminal venue cases involving
conceptually similar statutes. See, e.g., United States v.
Marsh, 144 F.3d 1229, 1242 (9th Cir. 1998) (“The problem
with Angotti as analogy is that the crime of endeavoring to
impede the IRS is complete when the endeavor is made.”).
    As the government points out, there certainly are crimes
that may be prosecuted where their effects are felt. See, e.g.,
Palliser v. United States, 136 U.S. 257, 265–66 (1890) (“It
is universally admitted that, where a shot fired in one
jurisdiction strikes a person in another jurisdiction, the
offender may be tried where the shot takes effect, and the
only doubt is whether he can be tried where the shot is
fired.”); 18 U.S.C. § 3236 (“In all cases of murder or
manslaughter, the offense shall be deemed to have been
committed at the place where the injury was inflicted, or the
poison administered or other means employed which caused
                     USA V. FORTENBERRY                    19

the death, without regard to the place where the death
occurs.”). But those situations are markedly different from
a Section 1001 offense, for which no statute nor universal
recognition permits a prosecution where the effects of a
statement are felt, and serve only to illustrate that Congress
is well equipped to identify the circumstances in which an
effects-based venue rule is appropriate. Congress did not
deem Section 1001 to be such a situation.
IV. Historical Practices and Traditions
    Our holding today is in line with our national historical
practices and traditions with respect to venue. See United
States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 515 (1995) (“We do not
doubt that historical practice is relevant to what the
Constitution means by such concepts as trial by jury.”).
    The Supreme Court recently examined the history of the
Venue and Vicinage Clauses, and that discussion is relevant
here. As the Court stated:

       [T]he relevant starting point . . . is the
       common-law “vicinage” right, which
       presumptively entitled defendants to a jury of
       the “neighbourhood” where the crime was
       allegedly committed. 4 W. Blackstone,
       Commentaries on the Laws of England 344
       (1769) (Blackstone). As a practical matter,
       this right imposed a venue requirement: trials
       needed to be held at the location where “the
       matter of fact issuable” allegedly occurred to
       allow the “Inhabitants whereof” to serve on
20                   USA V. FORTENBERRY

       the jury. 1 E. Coke, Institutes of the Laws of
       England § 193, at 125 (1628) (Coke).
           …
            There is no question that the founding
       generation enthusiastically embraced the
       vicinage right and wielded it “as a political
       argument of the Revolution.” Prior to the
       Revolution, Parliament enacted measures to
       circumvent local trials before colonial juries,
       most notably by authorizing trials in England
       for both British soldiers charged with
       murdering colonists and colonists accused of
       treason. The Continental Congress and
       colonial legislatures forcefully objected to
       trials in England before loyalist juries,
       characterizing the practice as an affront to the
       existing “common law of England, and more
       especially to the great and inestimable
       privilege of being tried by . . . peers of the
       vicinage.” The Declaration of Independence
       also denounced these laws, under which, it
       said, British soldiers were “protect[ed] . . . by
       a mock Trial” and colonists were
       “transport[ed] . . . beyond the Seas to be tried
       for pretended offences.”

Smith, 599 U.S. at 246–47 (footnotes omitted). Justice Story
also noted that the Venue Clause operates to protect criminal
defendants from being “dragged to a trial in some distant
state” that bears little or no connection to a controversy and
then “subjected to the verdict of mere strangers.” 3 J. Story,
Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States
§ 1775, at 654 (1st ed. 1833).
                     USA V. FORTENBERRY                      21

    Relevant historical practices in perjury prosecutions
supply useful insights in a context close to Section 1001. By
statute and at common law, perjury prohibits material false
statements. See Bronston v. United States, 409 U.S. 352, 357
(1973) (“The words of the statute confine the offense to the
witness who ‘willfully . . . states . . . any material matter
which he does not believe to be true.’”) (quoting 18 U.S.C.
§ 1621(1)); Anonymous, 1 F. Cas. 1032, 1036 (Washington,
Circuit Justice, C.C.D. Pa. 1084) (No. 475) (“[T]he common
law description of perjury is, a false oath taken in some
judicial proceeding in a matter material to the issue.”). The
prevailing rule is “that the crime of perjury in an affidavit is
complete the moment the oath is taken with the necessary
intent. It is immaterial and irrelevant that the false affidavit
is never used.” Steinberg v. United States, 14 F.2d 564, 567
(2d Cir. 1926); see also United States v. Noveck, 273 U.S.
202, 206 (1927) (“The crime of perjury is complete when the
oath is taken with the necessary intent, although the false
affidavit is never used.”); Commonwealth v. Carel, 105
Mass. 582, 586 (1870) (“The perjury is complete when the
oath is taken, whether the criminal effects his purpose or
not.”).
   Sir Lloyd Kenyon, Lord Chief Justice of the King’s
Bench, reached similar conclusions in 1797:

       The affidavit, on which the perjury is
       assigned, might have been sworn in a distant
       part of the kingdom; it might have been sent
       up by the post, and detained in the hands of
       any person here for some time; and according
       to the doctrine urged on behalf of the
       defendant, the guilt or innocence of the
       person making the affidavit in the country is
22                   USA V. FORTENBERRY

       to depend on the circumstance of the person
       into whose hands it comes, bringing it
       forward. But surely the guilt of the party
       cannot depend on the act of another person,
       when all that he had to do has been already
       consummated. In the instance of making an
       affidavit in the country the party is not to be
       indicted here where the affidavit may happen
       to be used, but in the county where the
       offence was complete by making the false
       oath.

R v. Crossley (1797) 101 Eng. Rep. 994, 996; 7 T.R. 315
(KB) 318–19 (Lord Kenyon CJ).
    Consequently, history confirms what the Constitution
commands. The founding generation had a deep and abiding
antipathy to letting the government arbitrarily choose a
venue in criminal prosecutions. Implying an effects-based
test for venue in Section 1001 cases, when Congress has not
so specified, would allow just that, in derogation of our
historical principles. Because a Section 1001 offense is
complete at the time the false statement is uttered, and
because no actual effect on federal authorities is necessary
to sustain a conviction, the location of the crime must be
understood to be the place where the defendant makes the
statement.
V. Materiality Jury Instructions
    Fortenberry contends that the district court erred by
declining to adopt his additional proposed instruction to the
jury that “a false statement is not material merely because it
causes the government to investigate the veracity, truth, or
falsehood of the statement itself.” Because we hold that
                     USA V. FORTENBERRY                     23

Fortenberry was tried in an improper venue, we do not reach
this contention of instructional error.
                      CONCLUSION
    Fortenberry’s trial took place in a state where no charged
crime was committed, and before a jury drawn from the
vicinage of the federal agencies that investigated the
defendant.        The Constitution does not permit this.
Fortenberry’s convictions are reversed so that he may be
retried, if at all, in a proper venue. See Smith, 599 U.S. 236.
The case is remanded for further proceedings that are
consistent with this decision.
   REVERSED.