Court Opinion

ID: 9489255
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:10:11.672073+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:25.221131
License: Public Domain

WILKINSON, Chief Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
While I agree with the result reached by the majority, I cannot subscribe to its reasoning. In my view, the government’s certification “that there is a substantial Federal interest in the ease or the offense to warrant the exercise of Federal jurisdiction,” 18 U.S.C. § 5032, is not subject to judicial review. The “substantial Federal interest” inquiry is intended to channel prosecutorial discretion with respect to juvenile defendants, and is the sort of executive determination that should be immune from judicial oversight.
This conclusion follows directly from the language and structure of section 5032. The statute provides that there shall be no federal proceedings against a juvenile “unless the Attorney General, after investigation, certifies ... that there is a substantial Federal interest in the case or the offense to warrant the exercise of Federal jurisdiction.” Id. Under a plain reading of this language, the only requirement is that the Attorney General attest to a “substantial Federal interest” in federal adjudication; the statute contains no provision allowing for judicial reassessment of the Attorney General’s determination.
According to the majority, though, the “lack of a specific provision addressing judicial review is in and of itself no bar to review.” While this may be true as a general matter, the absence of language authorizing judicial review is far more telling when, as is the case here, the same statute expressly provides for judicial review of another question. Section 5032 allows treating a juvenile as an adult upon “motion to transfer of the Attorney General,” but only “if [the] court finds, after hearing, such transfer would be in the interest of justice.” The statute thus explicitly requires judicial review of the Attorney General’s motion for transfer, yet contains no provision for judicial review of the Attorney General’s certification of a “substantial Federal interest.” Presumably, the omission was deliberate, and verifies that Congress did not intend judicial review of certification. See Russello v. United States, 464 U.S. 16, 23, 104 S.Ct. 296, 300, 78 L.Ed.2d 17 (1983) (“ Where Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.’ ”) (quoting United States v. Wong Kim Bo, 472 F.2d 720, 722 (5th Cir.1972)).
In addition, section 5032 contains no standards by which to judge a “substantial Federal interest.” See United States v. Vancier, 515 F.2d 1378, 1380-81 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 857, 96 S.Ct. 107, 46 L.Ed.2d 82 (1975). The statute includes no definition of the term, and supplies no guidance as to the central considerations. Again, this lack of criteria is in stark contrast to the provision requiring judicial review of a motion for transfer to adult status: The statute enumerates six specific factors for courts to weigh in determining whether transfer of a juvenile would be “in the interest of justice,”1 and *1325prescribes that those factors “shall be considered” and that “findings with regard to each factor shall be made.” 18 U.S.C. § 5032. Congress would have supplied comparable standards with respect to a “substantial Federal interest” if it envisioned judicial review of the Attorney General’s certification.
Lacking such guidance, courts which venture to review the substantiality of the federal interest will adopt widely varying approaches. Some courts might use a “federal nexus” test and require that the charged offense involve federal property or a federal official. Others might ask whether the conduct in question is proscribed by federal law — after all, anytime Congress enacts a criminal provision, there conceivably is a significant federal interest in enforcing it. Here, the majority has no difficulty finding a sufficient federal interest, based apparently on the enactment of stiff federal penalties for carjacking and on the existence of six federal felony charges. Such an inquiry, however, fails to provide meaningful standards for assessing the degree of federal interest. How many federal crimes, for instance, must a juvenile be charged with, and which federal offenses are sufficiently “substantial?”
The statute does not answer these questions. The only explanation of what suffices as a “substantial Federal interest in the case or the offense” is that it should “warrant the exercise of Federal jurisdiction.” 18 U.S.C. § 5032. This language is suggestive of an intent to guide prosecutorial discretion, see Vancier, 515 F.2d at 1380-81, as it alludes to the sort of case-specific policy determination that prosecutors must routinely make. United States v. W.P., Jr., 898 F.Supp. 845, 849-50 (M.D.Ala.1995). For instance, given the breadth of the mail fraud and wire fraud statutes, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, prosecutors must regularly make decisions as to which cases are sufficiently serious to warrant a federal charge. See Sedima, S.P.R.L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U.S. 479, 502, 105 S.Ct. 3292, 3293, 87 L.Ed.2d 346 (1985) (Marshall, J., dissenting) (“The only restraining influence on the ‘inexorable expansion of the mail and wire fraud statutes’ has been the prudent use of prosecutorial discretion.”) (quoting United States v. Siegel, 717 F.2d 9, 24 (2d Cir.1983) (Winter, J., dissenting)).
“Indeed, the government’s authority to certify that a given case implicates a substantial federal interest is akin to the government’s authority to decide which cases to prosecute.” United States v. Juvenile Male, 915 F.Supp. 789, 793 (WD.Va.1995). The two decisions, in fact, involve precisely the same standard- — the U.S. Attorneys’ Manual prescribes that government attorneys undertake a “substantial federal interest” inquiry when deciding whether to initiate a federal prosecution:
In determining whether prosecution should be declined because no substantial federal interest would be served by prosecution, the attorney for the government should weigh all relevant considerations, including:
1. Federal law enforcement priorities;
2. The nature and seriousness of the offense;
3. The deterrent effect of prosecution;
4. The person’s culpability in connection with the offense;
5. The person’s history with respect to criminal activity.
6. The person’s willingness to cooperate in the investigation or prosecution of others; and
7. The probable sentence or other consequences if the person is convicted.
Department of Justice, U.S. Attorneys’ Manual § 9-27.230(A) (emphasis added). These sorts of prosecutorial judgments, the Supreme Court has observed, are “particularly ill-suited to judicial review. Such factors as the strength of the case, the prosecution’s general deterrence value, the Government’s enforcement priorities, and the case’s relationship to the Government’s overall enforcement plan are not readily susceptible to the kind of analysis the courts are competent to undertake.” Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598, 607, 105 S.Ct. 1524, 1530, 84 L.Ed.2d 547 (1985). They are more appropriately left within the sole discretion of the executive, as Congress sought to do here.
The majority’s approach is fraught with mischief. Its reasoning would require, in *1326every juvenile proceeding in federal court, that the district court fully reevaluate the government’s reasons for invoking a federal forum. The prospect of inter-branch conflict is apparent. Suppose that the Attorney General believes that a particular case involves sufficiently serious violations of the federal criminal code to warrant federal adjudication. A district court, under the majority’s interpretation of section 5032, could repudiate the Attorney General’s policy determination by subjectively deciding that the case does not merit a federal proceeding. Yet the court’s decision would necessarily be based on the sorts of considerations that the Supreme Court held in Wayte are executive (not judicial) in nature. Id.; see United States v. Armstrong, — U.S. -, -, 116 S.Ct. 1480, 1486, 134 L.Ed.2d 687 (U.S.Cal. May 13, 1996) (“Judicial deference to the decisions of ... executive officers rests in part on an assessment of the relative competence of prosecutors and courts” and “also stems from a concern not to unnecessarily impair the performance of a core executive constitutional function.”).
Moreover, executive determinations under other, similar statutory provisions have been deemed outside the scope of judicial review. Vancier, 515 F.2d at 1381. Examples include a judgment by the U.S. Attorney under 18 U.S.C. § 6003 that compelling a witness to testily is in the public interest, see Ullmann v. United States, 350 U.S. 422, 431-34, 76 S.Ct. 497, 502-04, 100 L.Ed. 511 (1956); United States v. Hooks, 848 F.2d 785, 802 (7th Cir.1988), certification by the U.S. Attorney under 18 U.S.C. § 3731 that an appeal from an adverse suppression ruling is not taken for purposes of delay and involves evidence material to the proceedings, see United States v. Kepner, 843 F.2d 755, 761 (3d Cir.1988); In re Grand Jury Investigation, 599 F.2d 1224, 1226 (3d Cir.1979), and certification by the Attorney General under 18 U.S.C. § 3503(a) that the subject of a deposition to preserve testimony is believed to have participated in organized crime, see United States v. Ricketson, 498 F.2d 367, 374 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 965, 95 S.Ct. 227, 42 L.Ed.2d 180 (1974); United States v. Singleton, 460 F.2d 1148, 1154 (2d Cir.1972), cert. denied, 410 U.S. 984, 93 S.Ct. 1506, 36 L.Ed.2d 180 (1973).2
None of this calls into question our authority to review a certification for compliance with the formal requirements of section 5032. See United States v. C.G., 736 F.2d 1474, 1477 (11th Cir.1984). But the statute forecloses us from reexamining whether there exists a “substantial Federal interest in the case or the offense to warrant the exercise of Federal jurisdiction.” 18 U.S.C. § 5032. We have our job to do under the statute, and the prosecutors have theirs. I would thus hold, as did the district court, that the certification of a “substantial Federal interest” is immune from judicial review.

. The factors are: "the age and social background of the juvenile; the nature of the alleged offense; the extent and nature of the juvenile’s prior delinquency record; the juvenile’s present intellectual development and psychological maturity; the nature of past treatment efforts and the juvenile's response to such efforts; the availability of programs designed to treat the juvenile’s behavioral problems.” 18 U.S.C. § 5032.

. The Supreme Court’s decision in Gutierrez de Martinez v. Lamagno, - U.S. -, 115 S.Ct. 2227, 132 L.Ed.2d 375 (1995), supporting judicial review of the Attorney General's certification under the Westfall Act that an employee was acting within the scope of his employment, turned on concerns not at issue here. Two considerations "weigh[ed] heavily” on the Court's decision — that the Attorney General argued in favor of judicial review of certification, and that certification was "dispositive of a court controversy.” Id. at-, 115 S.Ct. at 2231. Neither of these concerns exists here. See Juvenile Male, 915 F.Supp. at 795; W.P., Jr., 898 F.Supp. at 850; see also United States v. Tucker, 78 F.3d 1313, 1318-19 (8th Cir.1996).