Court Opinion

ID: 9491864
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:25:47.549198+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:58.952606
License: Public Domain

RYAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The charge against the defendant, as laid in the indictment, required the government to prove that the defendant violated 18 U.S.C. § 2261(a)(2) by inflicting physical violence upon Scrivens “in the course or as a result of’ causing her, by force, coercion, or duress, to cross the state line. The evidence does not show that; rather, it shows that the defendant inflicted physical violence upon Scrivens at her condominium, before he forced her to cross the state line.
Judge Moore’s opinion attempts to give section 2261(a)(2) a meaning its language cannot accommodate, apparently on the theory that Congress surely must have intended to punish what the defendant did. But the square-pegged evidence in the record cannot properly be hammered into the oblong-shaped statute — not if faithfulness to the words of the statute matters — because it does not fit. Equally unavailing is Judge Moore’s apparent willingness to affirm the defendant’s conviction on the basis of the post-interstate-travel injuries Scrivens suffered, because that theory of culpability was not argued to the jury or submitted to it by the trial court in its instructions.
Domestic violence against women is deplorable — often cowardly — but it ill suits this court to rewrite more broadly what Congress has written narrowly on the theory that had it anticipated what the defendant did here, Congress surely would have wanted it punished.
I do agree with Judge Moore on one point; the Violence Against Women Act is plainly constitutional.