Court Opinion

ID: 9476207
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:50:05.055427+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:11.153813
License: Public Domain

J. BLAINE ANDERSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from Parts II and III of the majority opinion. It is, to me, a strained and overly technical reading of the plain language, meaning and structure of the statute.
The first paragraph of 18 U.S.C. § 33 should be read in the disjunctive and as creating two separate and quite distinct prohibited acts, one requiring proof of will*1433fulness and the other requiring only proof of reckless disregard. The meaning and facial structure seem plain. We are required to give the words of a statute their ordinary and everyday meaning, unless Congress prescribes a special meaning. See, e.g., Malat v. Riddell, 383 U.S. 569, 86 S.Ct. 1030, 16 L.Ed.2d 102 (1966). It seems to me to be unnecessary to engage in the grammatical gymnastics performed by the majority to reach a correct and just result in this case.
The first separate prohibited act is directed to willfully endangering the safety of anyone on board the bus. The second prohibited act is the damaging of a bus with reckless disregard for the safety of human life. The first part of the paragraph speaks of action directed at the individual and the second is speaking to action directed toward the bus, which may have the effect of endangering the safety of those on board. Congress was certainly free to adopt different qualities of mens rea for these separate and distinct acts.
The defendants were properly charged in the indictment with violation by reckless disregard of the second part of the paragraph, the jury was so instructed, and there was more than ample evidence to support the jury verdict.