Court Opinion

ID: 9499789
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:57:40.456214+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:43.647049
License: Public Domain

BRIGHT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
It is ordinarily unlawful for anyone “who has been convicted in any court of, a crime publishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year” to possess a firearm or ammunition which has traveled in interstate commerce, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), but the congressional enactment before us exempts certain individuals who commit business crimes, 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20)(A). The exemption from the bar to gun ownership applies to persons convicted of “antitrust violations, unfair trade practices, restraints of trade, or other similar offenses relating to the regulation of business practices];.]” 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20)(A) (emphasis added). Thus a person who has committed a felony may still own a gun if that person’s felony relates to certain business crimes.
The majority speculates that Congress, on passing this legislation, excluded only a limited subset of business crimes, and that the Stanko’s Federal Meat Inspection Act (“FMIA”) offenses, 21 U.S.C. § 601 et seq., are not “unfair trade practices” crimes or “similar offenses” within the scope of the exemption. The Gun Control Act of 1968 originally required the Secretary to designate the “similar offenses” that were within the scope of the exemption, 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(20) (Supp.V.1969). The 1986 Firearms Owners’ Protection Act, Pub.L. No. 99-308, 100 Stat. 449 (1986), however, eliminated the Secretary’s role and left the courts to determine which business offenses are similar to antitrust violations, unfair trade practices, and restraints of trade.
A court’s task of interpreting the exemption is complicated by the lack of Congressional commentary on § 921(a)(20)(A). Most recently, when Congress amended the Gun Control Act by enacting the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act, the bill’s sponsor, Senator James McClure, explained:
[T]his bill [the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act] has been painstakingly crafted to focus law enforcement on the kinds of Federal firearms law violations most likely to contribute to violent firearms crime.... We must compel the enforcing agency to, stop harassing honest people and to direct their efforts at the violent criminals who give all gun owners a bad name.
131 Cong. Rec. S23 (daily ed. Jan 3, 1985) (statement of Sen. McClure).
The statement seems to limit the prohibition on gun ownership only to “those who have demonstrated that ‘they may not be trusted to possess a firearm without becoming a threat to society.’ ” Scarborough v. United States, 431 U.S. 563, 572, 97 S.Ct. 1963, 52 L.Ed.2d 582 (1977) (quoting 114 Cong. Rec. 14773 (1968)) (explaining the intent of the prohibitions against felons possessing firearms contained in the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1968).
Congress, by enacting § 921(a)(20)(A), has deemed criminals who commit a-subset of business crimes outside the definition of those who “may not be trusted,” but it has done little to outline the contours of that subset. The parties here have not sug*420gested any legislative history explaining the original meaning of the § 921(a)(20)(A) exemption or the choice to remove the Secretary’s role in defining its scope, and like the majority I have found none.
The result of Congress’s abdication is a criminal statute that is impermissibly vague. See Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 357, 103 S.Ct. 1855, 75 L.Ed.2d 903 (1983); United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 348, 92 S.Ct. 515, 30 L.Ed.2d 488 (1971); see also James v. United States, — U.S. -, 127 S.Ct. 1586, 1601-03, 167 L.Ed.2d 532 (2007) (Scalia, J., dissenting). The definitions contained in § 921, and those pertaining to the regulation of gun ownership generally, are loadstones for due process challenges predicated on vagueness. See, e.g., United States v. Smith, 171 F.3d 617, 622 (8th Cir.1999); United States v. Decker, 446 F.2d 164, 166 (8th Cir.1971); United States v. Nieves-Castano, 480 F.3d 597, 603 (1st Cir.2007) (collecting cases); White v. Dep’t of Justice, 328 F.3d 1361, 1368 (Fed.Cir.2003). The challenges have thus far proved unsuccessful.
But here the vagueness of statute goes beyond, for example, the uncertainty inherent in defining a “violent felony” for purposes of 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B) (codifying in part the Armed Career Criminal Act), see James v. United States, — U.S. -, n. 6, 127 S.Ct. 1586, 1598 n. 6, 167 L.Ed.2d 532 (2007), or a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” for purposes of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9), see United States v. Pfeifer, 371 F.3d 430, 437 (8th Cir.2004). I recognize that the enumerated crimes of § 921(a)(20)(A) likely do not lack constitutionally required specificity; they are no more vague than “violent felony” or “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.” And, the majority plausibly distinguishes Stanko’s FMIA violations from the category of excluded “unfair trade practices” crimes because the FMIA is a public health statute in addition to an economic regulation. However, § 921(a)(20)(A)’s exemption of similar offenses clause lacks the same specificity.
The “similar offenses” clause of § 921(a)(20)(A) is crucial to this appeal. If, as the majority notes, this court is to obey a fundamental tenet of statutory interpretation, the clause must contemplate some crimes or be relegated to “mere sur-plusage.” See Potter v. United States, 155 U.S. 438, 446, 15 S.Ct. 144, 39 L.Ed. 214 (1894). But the clause is, at the moment, hollow: the Secretary seemingly failed to designate any crimes prior to 1986 and I am not familiar with any precedent placing a crime within its scope. Cf. United States v. McLemore, 792 F.Supp. 96, 98 (S.D.Ala.1992) (crime of odometer tampering, 15 U.S.C. § § 1984, 1990c(a), an “unfair trade practice” crime within the scope of § 921(a)(20)(A)). Courts have only, like the majority in this case, provided some guidance regarding crimes that are outside the clause.7 See, e.g., United States v. Oldroyd, No. 97-30354, 1998 WL 476395 (9th Cir. July 28, 1998) (unpublished opinion) (harboring illegal alien not offense relating to regulation of business prac*421tices); Dreher v. United States, 115 F.3d 330, 332 (5th Cir.1997) (mail fraud and wire fraud not offenses excluded by § 921(a)(20)(A)); United States v. Kruckel, No. 92-611, 1993 WL 765648 (D.N.J. Aug.13, 1993) (crime of filing false tax returns not within similar offenses clause). It may be that the district court in Dreher was correct when it described the similar offenses clause to include “violations of laws which likewise seek to enhance competition and prevent injuries to consumers and businesses.” Dreher v. United States, 943 F.Supp. 680, 683 (W.D.La.1996). But, that judicially constructed definition may also be too restrictive to the extent that it excludes statutes — like the Federal Meat Inspection Act — that are primarily, or partially, designed to prevent evils beyond economic harm. Courts have yet to discover — or be presented with — an instance where the government sought to use such a purely economic crime, outside the three enumerated categories, to justify an 18 U.S.C. § 922 prosecution.
The complete absence of Congressional guidance and scarcity of federal precedent leaves the meaning of the similar offenses clause unconstitutionally vague, and thus the class of individuals who may possess a firearm without the threat of prosecution is in part undefined. All persons, including those like Stanko, enjoy the right to live under a system of laws in which “a penal statute define[s] the criminal offense with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.” Kolender, 461 U.S. at 357, 103 S.Ct. 1855. That right should not be jeopardized by an approach to statute drafting and interpretation that forces at least one individual (for each arguably economic crime) to learn, ex post, whether he has committed a crime by possessing a firearm.8 See James, 127 S.Ct. at 1609-10 (Scalia, J., dissenting).
The similar offenses clause of § 921(a)(20)(A) could be read as the majority determines, or otherwise, as contended by Stanko. Either is a plausible interpretation of the text. Stanko should not be convicted under a statute that is so uncertain as to its meaning, and therefore I respectfully dissent.

. The majority includes United States v. Meldish, 722 F.2d 26 (2d Cir.1983) in its catalogue of cases that have examined § 921(a)(20)(A)’s exemption. Meldish held that the crime of importation by means of a false customs declaration, 18 U.S.C. § 542, is not an unfair trade practices crime, and that determination provides some guidance. But, the case is unhelpful as an example of crimes not included in the similar offenses clause because Meldish analyzed the § 921(a)(20)(A) exemptions prior to 1986, when the Secretary was the gatekeeper of the similar offenses clause. It is at least possible that a court, examining the crime today, could conclude that § 542 offenses do not prohibit an unfair trade practice but are within the judicially constructed set of similar offenses.

. Stanko attempted but failed to get a final adjudication of his rights in a noncriminal setting. He sought a declaratory judgment that his FMIA offense was within the scope of § 921(a)(20), which a district court denied on the merits, but the Ninth Circuit vacated the court’s order because Stanko had not, at that time, suffered a harm and thus lacked standing. See Stanko v. United States, No. 95-35289, 1995 WL 499524 (9th Cir. Aug.22, 1995) (unpublished opinion). The Ninth Circuit's decision highlights the concern I express in this dissent: our system of laws should not accept a statute so vague that an individual must suffer the harm of a § 922(g) conviction before learning from the courts whether his prior conviction falls within the scope of § 921(a)(20)’s exemptions.