Court Opinion

ID: 9495564
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:05:43.11267+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:05.226169
License: Public Domain

EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting, with whom E. GRADY JOLLY, JERRY E. SMITH, DeMOSS and CLEMENT, Circuit Judges, join:
Judges Garwood’s and Higginbotham’s non pareil opinions explain why eight members of this court would hold that appellant McFarland could not be constitutionally prosecuted under the Hobbs Act for routine convenience store robberies. The Supreme Court’s decisions in Lopez and Morrison compel this result, in our view, by limiting the extent to which the Commerce Clause facilitates ever-deeper federal incursions into the states’ constitutional prerogative of local crime control. Eight other judges silently reject this conclusion. Unfortunately, they have' withdrawn from the field of reasoned dispute, just as they did in a similar case two years ago. United States v. Hickman, 179 F.3d 230 (5th Cir.1999) (en banc). It is our view that our court owes the public a candid explanation of our respective positions.
*417One may ask why our silent colleagues should be called on to write anything. Is it somehow inappropriate for courts to issue opinions when they are evenly divided? The short answer to this question is, no. Both the general role of the appellate courts and the exact circumstances of this case virtually demand expression of our competing views.
Federal appellate courts’ twin duties are to decide appeals and to articulate the law. Writing reasoned opinions, especially in important cases, is critical to the responsible performance of these duties. One of the most prominent studies of the federal appellate courts exhorts us:
The obligation to give reasons is vital to both functions. When reasons are announced and can be weighed, the public can have assurance that the correcting process is working. Announcing reasons can also provide public understanding of how the numerous decisions of the system are integrated. In a busy court, the reasons are an essential demonstration that the court did in fact fix its mind on the case at hand. An unreasoned decision has very little claim to acceptance by the defeated party, and is difficult or impossible to accept as an act reflecting systematic application of legal principles. Moreover, the necessity of stating reasons not infrequently changes the results by forcing the judges to come to grips with nettlesome facts or issues which their normal instincts would otherwise cause them to avoid.
Paul D. Carrington, Daniel J. Meador and Maurice Rosenberg, Justice on Appeal 10 (West 1976) (emphasis added). Judge Wald, formerly Chief Judge of the District of Columbia Circuit, also emphasized this point: “The courts’ opinions should contain reasoned explanations of their decisions to lend them legitimacy, permit public evaluation, and impose a discipline on judges.” Hon. Patricia Wald, The Problem with the Courts: Black-Robed Bureaucracy or Collegiality Under Challenge?, 42 Md. L.Rev. 766, 768-69 (1983).
The benefits of issuing reasoned opinions — fostering public understanding of the law, accountability and transparency, and imposing self-discipline on the judges — are not limited to majority opinions. Judges’ occasional writings, such as concurrences, dissents, opinions following denial of en banc rehearing — and opinions written despite an evenly divided court— lack the force of law but deploy the force of suasion for exactly the same purposes as majority opinions. In no case can we compel our brethren to provide published reasons for their decisions. By their silence here, however, they have defaulted their duties of public explication, accountability and transparency.
Our colleagues’ uniform silence is initially disappointing because this is an important case. For more than a decade, the Supreme Court has been reinvigorating federalism as a component of our constitutional structure. Lower federal courts have the obligation conscientiously to enforce the Court’s decisions in this evolving area. The new trend furnishes issues that should intellectually delight and challenge us and evoke our utmost analytical powers. Our opinions may be useful to the Supreme Court, for good or ill, when this case is appealed, and may be persuasive in other federal courts.
The reticence of our colleagues cannot, in our view, be rationalized as prudence, or the unwillingness to write reasons in a non-definitive case. The outcome of this case is definitive. When the court tackled the same issue two years ago, nearly the same group of judges declined to give reasons for affirming a Hobbs Act conviction against a Commerce Clause attack. As a result, the federal government feels free to *418prosecute purely local robberies without inhibition in this circuit. Our pattern jury instructions continue to say that a showing of any effect on interstate commerce (no matter how small) will suffice to create federal jurisdiction over a Hobbs Act crime. The only brake installed by this court against federalization of all robberies under the Hobbs Act consists of our arbitrary exclusion a few years ago of robberies of individuals. United States v. Collins, 40 F.3d 95 (5th Cir.1994). The affirming judges’ silence here thus assures, whether they desire it or not, that there is no principled limit on federal prosecution of robberies — even of the proverbial lemonade stand.
Adding to the mystery of their silence is the long-standing and consistent, albeit optional, practice of issuing explanatory opinions in other courts that have split evenly when sitting en banc. There are at least two dozen cases in recent years, from nearly every circuit, in which such opinions were issued.1 Responding to a colleague’s *419criticism of his filing a separate opinion in one such case, Judge Wilkins of the Fourth Circuit had this explanation:
Judge Murnaghan’s unsupported statement that a judge should remain silent when an en banc vote on a particular issue is equally divided is misplaced. To the contrary, many times a judge feels that it is important for the litigants and others to know why the court is divided on a particular issue. And, we routinely author opinions that do not carry the weight of the majority opinion such as concurring opinions, dissenting opinions, and opinions following a failed poll for en banc consideration; an expression of the reasons supporting a vote in this situation is not dissimilar. Moreover, the expression of the views of individual judges when an en banc vote is equally divided is hardly novel.
United States v. Barber, 119 F.3d 276, 289 (4th Cir.1997) (en banc) (citing cases).
In this court as well, silence is not our custom. Judges have explained themselves in many previous eases where this court divided evenly en banc. Carter v. United States, 325 F.2d 697 (5th Cir.1963) (en banc); United States v. Holmes, 537 F.2d 227 (5th Cir.1976) (en banc); Meltzer v. Bd. of Pub. Instruction of Orange County, Florida, 577 F.2d 311 (5th Cir.1978) (en banc); United States v. Ibarra, 965 F.2d 1354 (5th Cir.1992) (en banc); United States v. Greer, 968 F.2d 433 (5th Cir.1992) *420(en banc); United States v. Kirk, 105 F.3d 997 (5th Cir.1997) (en banc); United States v. Hickman, 179 F.3d 230 (5th Cir.1999) (en banc). In 1997, five of the eight judges who now say nothing joined an opinion on an issue similar to the one now before us, whether Lopez applied to invalidate a federal gun possession violation. United States v. Kirk, 105 F.3d at 998 (en banc) (separate opinion of Judge Parker, joined by Judges King, Davis, Wiener and Stewart). The court was also evenly divided in Kirk. One wonders what could prompt silence here, when juxtaposed with the writings there? In sum, there are customary, issue-specific and even judge-specific precedents for publishing written explanations following evenly split en banc decisions in our court. ,
Given the sharpness and timeliness of the issue that divides this court, the silence of those who affirm McFarland’s conviction has a public dimension. The court is an institution defined by the reasoned exercise of power. It signals disregard for the public — the federal prosecutors and defense attorneys — who remain unenlightened over how to avert, or precipitate, serious discussion of the limits now imposed by the commerce clause on federalization of local crime. Silence ex-Mbits a unique unconcern for appellant McFarland, as earlier for appellant Hickman, both of whom were entitled to know how the power of the federal government constitutionally bore down on them. Our court almost invariably gives reasons for affirming criminal convictions — but not today. Even in non-orally argued summary calendar dispositions, the defendants invariably receive some explanation in response to their appeals.2 Finally, this silence signals indifference toward the predictability required of a fair-minded criminal justice system.
While diminishing the court’s transparency and accountability, our colleagues’ silence may also obscure their internal disagreements. But if that were the sole purpose, it makes no 'sense. Judges often express different reasons for reaching a single result. In fact, the best test of competing legal theories is in the open marketplace of ideas. Silence, therefore, could mean an unwillingness to compete.3
Had any of our silent colleagues chosen to compete, they would have to explain why — in the face of Lopez, Morrison, Jones and Judges Garwood’s and Higginbotham’s able opinions — the Hobbs Act regulates “interstate commerce” by federalizing even a single local robbery.4 *421Because our colleagues are unwilling to speak for themselves, and because the public is entitled to receive some reasons for affirming McFarland’s conviction, we shall attempt to paraphrase the most significant arguments for their position.
Those who affirm concede that none of these local robberies, considered individually or collectively, “substantially affects” interstate commerce, as Lopez category III requires. They acknowledge they can only show a proper basis for federal prosecution under Lopez and Morrison if the Hobbs Act “regulates” some intrastate activity whose aggregate national impact substantially affects interstate commerce. But what is the regulated activity, and how are its “substantial effects” calculated? There are mutually conflicting ways to answer these critical questions. The silent judges apparently cannot agree on the answers, and some of them apparently adhere to more than one answer.
The first route is to assert that robbery is an “economic activity.” This theory draws on an alleged distinction between Morrison and Lopez. Even if Morrison states a categorical rule against aggregating the effects of “noneconomic, violent criminal conduct”, some of the silent judges apparently believe that aggregation of robberies under the Hobbs Act is still permissible. While Lopez suggested that aggregation of noncommercial activities is inappropriate, see Lopez, 514 U.S. at 561, 115 S.Ct. at 1631 (emphasis added), Morrison ’s language “clarifies” that the aggregation of noneconomic activities is problematic. 529 U.S. at 617, 120 S.Ct. at 1754 (emphasis added). Thus, their argument goes, Congress could have had a rational basis for concluding that the Hobbs Act regulates economic activity because robbery is an “economic crime.” More colorfully, one might assert that because the thief sticks his hand into the stream of commerce, not inadvertently or tangentially, but as a primary and defining aspect of his conduct, robbery is an economic activity. Substituting yet another metaphor, the robber’s conduct is a “coercive barter” in an unquestionably commercial environment — a convenience store.
Of course, robbery should not be considered an “economic” activity. The dictionary defines “economic” as “relating to, or concerned with the production, distribution and consumption of commodities.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 720 (1981). Certainly, robbery has some economic effect, but so do murder, aggravated assault, and theft. Further, to say that robberies may be aggregated because robbery is an economic activity is contrary to the decisions of this court and many other courts that robberies of individuals may not be aggregated for prosecution under the Hobbs Act. See cases cited in n. 35 of Judge Garwood’s opinion. Under the robbery-as-economic-activity theory, Congress could make it a federal crime intentionally to walk out of your neighbor’s house with a $5 bill he left on his kitchen counter.
Arson is frequently an economically-motivated crime, but in Jones, the Supreme Court interpreted the federal arson statute not to reach the immolation of an individual owner-occupied residence. Justice Ginsburg wrote for a unanimous Court that, “[gjiven the concerns brought to the fore in Lopez, it is appropriate to avoid the constitutional question that would arise were we to read [the federal arson statute] to render ‘the traditionally local criminal *422conduct’ in which petitioner Jones engaged ‘a matter for federal law enforcement’ ” Jones v. United States, 529 U.S. 848, 858, 120 S.Ct. 1904, 146 L.Ed.2d 902 (2000).5
Moving in exactly the opposite direction, some of our silent colleagues would agree that robbery is not an economic act, but because the Hobbs Act has a jurisdictional hook encompassing any robbery that has “any effect” on interstate commerce, and because robbery is not “too attenuated” from commercial enterprise, Congress has power to proscribe all robberies under the Commerce Clause. But the question these judges have not answered is how their rationale provides any limit at all to the prosecution of local crime by the federal government. Under their position, a federal statute could extend to all murders and assaults which “in any way or degree affect commerce,” or a federal statute could criminalize all murders or assaults in which the victim is an income earner and which “in any way or degree affect commerce.” Aggregating such crimes would result in the requisite “substantial effect.” Obviously, such “reasoning would allow Congress to regulate any crime as long as the nationwide, aggregated impact of that crime has substantial effects on employment, production, transit or consumption.” Morrison, 529 U.S. at 615, 120 S.Ct. at 1752-53. Morrison clearly rejected this view.
Some would affirm by crafting a narrower approach to the statute, arguing that the Hobbs Act is really concerned with convenience store robberies and the like, that is, with robberies of commercial establishments.6 This approach stalls, however, because it requires ignoring or judicially rewriting the statute; the statute is not restricted to robberies of businesses or commercial enterprises, much less to convenience stores or any other specific victim. It plainly and broadly applies to any robbery of any victim which “in any way or degree ... affects [interstate] commerce.” Further, in a purely result-oriented fashion, this position allows aggregation of all convenience store robberies, so that any of them — including a $1 robbery from a local store that buys $10 a month of out-of-state goods from a local wholesaler — may properly be prosecuted as a federal crime, but it excludes a $10,000 robbery of diamonds from a jewel merchant walking along a city street. Congress was hardly so inconsistent.
Alternatively, instead of facing the hard decision whether robbery is or is not an “economic activity,” some of our silent colleagues would argue that the Hobbs Act is “more closely related to economic activity” than are other crimes, hence, aggregation *423of robberies is permitted. But, as the Court pointed out in Morrison, “in those cases where we have sustained regulation of intrastate activity based upon the activity’s substantial effects on interstate commerce, the activity in question has been some sort of economic endeavor.” Morrison, 529 U.S. at 611, 120 S.Ct. at 1750. See also Morrison, Id. n. 4 (“... in every case where we have sustained federal regulation under the aggregation principle in Wickard (citation omitted), the regulated activity was of an apparently commercial character. See, e.g., Lopez.”) (citation omitted) (emphasis added). All of the Court’s prior aggregation holdings involved a regulation of the conduct of a wholly or partially commercial enterprise. The Hobbs Act is not such a statute. This theory would extend aggregation to an area no Supreme Court holding has traversed. Lopez and Morrison plainly point away from such an extension.
Then again, some of our colleagues may head in a different direction and dispute the premise that it has made a crucial difference to the Supreme Court whether aggregation was based on the status of the regulated activity as commercial or noncommercial. From this standpoint, aggregation turns on the effects of the activity (such as robbery) and not on the inherent relation of the activity to interstate commerce. But Lopez says exactly the opposite: “[w]here economic activity substantially affects interstate commerce, legislation regulating that activity will be sustained.” Lopez, 514 U.S. at 560, 115 S.Ct. at 1630 (emphasis added).
One distinctive approach would state that robbery is not an economic activity, but also would assert that Judge Garwood’s opinion has constructed a new test different from that in Lopez and Morrison. Since no further explanation is offered, the source of the novelty would apparently be left to the reader’s imagination.
Yet another conclusory position seems to assert that prosecutors have been convicting defendants under the Hobbs Act by aggregating the de minimis effects of local, intrastate robberies for forty years. Of course, Lopez and Morrison had not been decided forty years ago. Moreover, even though recent opinions of sister circuits may support this sort of an argument for stare decisis, their inadequate reasoning does not sustain the constitutionality of the Hobbs Act as here applied.7
Finally, some of our silent colleagues would go so far as to suggest that if the Supreme Court wanted to rein in application of the Hobbs Act, it has had ample opportunity to do so. This court should not take the initiative. But this reasoning is backwards. It is the lower courts’ duty faithfully to apply the Supreme Court’s rulings in Lopez and Morrison in the first instance. We cannot ignore the Court’s decisions any more than we are permitted to second-guess its failure to grant certio-rari on issues of interest to us.
Despite their internal conflicts or incoherency, all of these arguments share a common thread. None of them responds to the federalism concerns expressed so unmistakably in Lopez and Morrison.8 *424None of them sets any principled limit on the exercise of federal power to prosecute indisputably local crime.9 None of them respects that the words “commerce” and “economic” have fixed meanings, which do not conventionally include ordinary robbery.
Chief Justice Rehnquist’s conclusion in Morrison was, however, tolerably clear to the lay reader:
“We accordingly reject the argument that Congress may regulate noneconomic, violent criminal conduct based solely on that conduct’s aggregate effect on interstate commerce. The Constitution requires a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local. In recognizing this fact we preserve one of the few principles that has been consistent since the [Commerce] Clause was adopted. The regulation and punishment of intrastate violence that is not directed at the instrumentalities, chan-neis, or goods involved in interstate commerce has always been the province of the States. Indeed, we can think of no better example of the police power, which the Founders denied the National Government and reposed in the States, than the suppression of violent crime and vindication of its victims.”
Morrison, 529 U.S. at 617, 120 S.Ct. at 1754. (citations and footnote omitted). We might have had a forthright and responsible debate, if our colleagues had adhered to their duty to express reasons why they have chosen to allow McFarland to be convicted of a federal crime.

. United States v. Brown, 276 F.3d 14 (1st Cir.2002) (en banc): Three judges wrote separate statements supporting reversal of the district court's judgment
Jean v. Collins, 221 F.3d 656 (4th Cir.2000) (en banc): 1 opinion concurring in affirmance by equally divided court; 2 dissenting opinions.
United States v. Walton, 207 F.3d 694 (4th Cir.2000) (en banc): An opinion for affirmance written by a deceased judge was concurred in by half the court. In addition, two judges wrote separate concurring opinions, and three judges wrote dissenting opinions.
United States v. Barber, 119 F.3d 276 (4th Cir.1997).
Stupak-Thrall v. United States, 89 F.3d 1269 (6th Cir.1996) (en banc): The order affirming the judgment of the district court by an equally divided vote states: "The mandate will not issue for fourteen (14) days from the date of this order so that members of the court may file any separate opinions they wish to.” Id. at 1269. Thereafter, concurring and dissenting opinions were filed.
United States v. Page, 167 F.3d 325 (6th Cir.1999) (en banc): 8 judges joined separate concurring opinion supporting affirmance; 3 separate opinions supporting reversal.
Norwood v. Bain, 166 F.3d 243 (4th Cir.1999) (en banc): separate opinions written explaining reasons why judges would reverse or affirm district court’s judgment on issues as to which en banc court was equally divided.
United States v. Chen, 131 F.3d 375 (4th Cir.1997) (en banc): defendants’ 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1) convictions were affirmed by an equally divided court. Judge Wilkins wrote a separate concurring opinion explaining the reasons for affirming those convictions. The judges who voted to reverse the convictions did not file an opinion.
Baker v. Pataki, 85 F.3d 919 (2d Cir.1996) (en banc): One separate opinion in favor of affirming; two separate opinions in favor of reversing. The separate opinion in favor of affirmance cites cases regarding the practice of filing opinions in such cases in other circuits and notes:
Our prior cases do not purport to announce a rule that opinions on the merits should not be written, and we believe that there should be an option to issue them (which is obviously exercised affirmatively in this case). This is especially so because the views of this court of intermediate appeal might be useful to the Supreme Court in the event of an application for certiorari.
Id. at 922 n. 2.
United States v. Hamrick, 43 F.3d 877 (4th Cir.1995) (enbánc).
Smith v. Zant, 887 F.2d 1407 (11th Cir.1989) (en banc): By an equally divided vote, the court affirmed the district court's grant of habeas relief as to Smith's death sentence. Judge Tjoflat wrote a separate concurrence explaining why he and five other judges would affirm the denial of habeas relief as to the conviction, and would reverse the grant of habeas relief as to the death sentence. Judge Kravitch wrote a concurrence and dissent explaining why six judges would reverse the denial of habeas relief as to the conviction and affirm the grant of habeas relief as to the death sentence.
United States v. Grey Bear, 863 F.2d 572 (8th Cir.1988) (en banc): Separate opinions were filed in support of reversal and in support of affirmance. The opinion in support of reversal states that it is written "solely because" the opinion in support of affirmance "could cause confusion among lawyers and *419district judges of this circuit." Id. at 573. The opinion in support of affirmance states: "As the divided court today affirms the rulings of the district court with respect to join-der and severance, it is appropriate that we articulate the reasons that five judges vote in favor of this result." Id. at 580.
Hotel & Restaurant Employees Union, Local 25 v. Smith, 846 F.2d 1499 (D.C.Cir.1988): The court split over the issues of standing and ripeness. Judge Mikva’s separate opinion acknowledges that the opinions "carry no weight and determine no law of the circuit" and that it is "unlikely they will shed much light.” Nevertheless, he states that "[a] reasonable regard for our colleagues' views in disagreement ... compels our brief statement of how we believe this appeal should have been resolved." Id. at 1500. Judge Silber-man filed a separate opinion for the other half of the court.
Piper v. Supreme Court of New Hampshire, 723 F.2d 110 (1st Cir.1983) (en banc): Separate opinions supporting affirmance and reversal.
Elmore v. Cone Mills Corp., 23 F.3d 855 (4th Cir.1994) (en banc): The court was evenly divided as to one issue. Three separate opinions were filed regarding that issue, two in support of affirmance and one in support of reversal.
Faulkner Advertising Assocs., Inc. v. Nissan Motor Corp. in U.S.A., 945 F.2d 694 (4th Cir.1991) (en banc): Separate opinions in support of affirmance and in support of reversal.
United States v. Klubock, 832 F.2d 664 (1st Cir.1987) (en banc): one opinion supporting affirmance and two supporting reversal.
Jenkins ex rel. Agyei v. State of Missouri, 807 F.2d 657 (8th Cir.1987) (en banc): separate opinions supporting affirmance and reversal.
Roesch, Inc. v. Star Cooler Corp., 712 F.2d 1235 (8th Cir.1983) (en banc): After noting that the usual practice when a judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court is not to express any opinion, the judges supporting affirmance stated: "In the present case, however, because of the significance of the issue involved and the circumstances of the changed en banc panel, we elect to set forth our reasons for affirming the district court's judgment.” Id. at 1236. A brief dissent was filed by the judges supporting reversal, relying on the reasons discussed in a dissenting opinion filed in a companion case (Battle).
Battle v. Watson, 712 F.2d 1238 (8th Cir.1983) (en banc): The judges supporting affir-mance adopted the reasoning of the judges supporting affirmance in Roesch. The judges supporting reversal wrote a separate dissent.
But see FMC Corp. v. United States Dep’t of Commerce, 29 F.3d 833 (3d Cir.1994) (en banc): One of the dissenting opinions contains a footnote stating: "Because the court is equally divided on the issue of the government's liability as an arranger, and it is our tradition not to write an opinion in that situation, I do not set forth what I believe are independent reasons to reverse the district court in that regard.” Id. at 854 n. 7.

. As Judge Richard Arnold put it, "The third duty of the court is to write an opinion which is intelligible, which explains the result, and which we hope, is acceptable to the losing side. I think about losing litigants a lot. Those are the people who need to understand that they have been heard — that a reasoning creature of some kind has evaluated their argument and comes to some sort of conclusion about it. They won’t like it; they won't enjoy losing, but I hope that they will have a sense that they have been heard.” Richard S. Arnold, The Future of the Federal Courts, 60 Mo. L.Rev. 533, 536 (1995).

. "If I cannot give a reason I should be willing to stand to, I must shrink from the very result which otherwise seems good.” County of Los Angeles v. Kling, 474 U.S. 936, 940 n. 6, 106 S.Ct. 300, 88 L.Ed.2d 277 (1985) (Stevens, J. dissenting from summary reversal) quoting Karl Llewellyn, The Common Law Tradition 26 (1960), quoted in Reynolds & Richman, The Non-Precedential Precedent— Limited Publication and No-Citation Rules in the United States Courts of Appeals, 78 Colum. L.Rev. 1167, 1204 (1978)).

.We all agree that under the Hobbs Act, Congress may punish robberies that are perpetrated against the channels of interstate commerce (Lopez category I), goods or things in interstate commerce (Lopez category II), and even individual robberies that "substantially affect” interstate commerce (Lopez category III). Our dispute rests solely on whether *421intrastate robberies like the ones before us, that have no impact on interstate commerce, can be federally prosecuted.

. Justice Ginsburg further noted that in Lopez, “the Court stressed that the [regulated activity] was one of traditional state concern and that the legislation aimed at activity in which 'neither the actors nor their conduct has a commercial character.' ” Jones, 529 U.S. at 858, 120 S.Ct. at 1911-12 (quoting Lopez, 514 U.S. at 577, 580, 115 S.Ct. at 1638, 1640 (Kennedy, J. concurring)). Additionally, Justice Stevens, in concurrence, stated the courts should be reluctant to “believe Congress intended to authorize federal intervention in local law enforcement in a marginal case such as this [arson of a private residence].” Id. at 859, 120 S.Ct. 1904 (Stevens, J. concurring); see also Lopez, 514 U.S. at 561 n. 3, 115 S.Ct. at 1631 n. 3.

. Advocates of this position would contend that Congress can, pursuant to its Commerce Clause power, regulate otherwise local criminal conduct that targets businesses, but not individuals. This "rule”, they could say, provides a clear, practical guideline for legislators who are considering federal criminal legislation as well as for federal prosecutors. Let us ignore that this "rule” amounts to judicial legislation — if the "rule” were so easily defensible, why is it not articulated as the position of the silent colleagues?

. See United States v. Gray, 260 F.3d 1267, 1274-75 (11th Cir.2001); United States v. Peterson, 236 F.3d 848, 852 (7th Cir.2001); United States v. Malone, 222 F.3d 1286, 1294-95 (10th Cir.2000). Several of the circuit courts have also drawn the patently arbitrary distinction between robberies of individuals and commercial establishments.

. To cite but one example: “Were the Federal Government to take over the regulation of entire areas of traditional state concern, areas having nothing to do with the regulation of *424commercial activities, the boundaries between tire spheres of federal and state authority would blur and political responsibility would become illusory.” Morrison, 529 U.S. at 611, 120 S.Ct. at 1750, (quoting Lopez, 514 U.S. at 577, 115 S.Ct. at 1638 (Kennedy, J., concurring)).

. "If accepted, petitioners' reasoning would allow Congress to regulate any crime as long as the nationwide, aggregated impact of that crime has substantial effects on employment, production, transit, or consumption. Indeed, if Congress may regulate gender-motivated violence, it would be able to regulate murder or any type of violence since gender-motivated violence, as a subset of all violent crime, is certain to have lesser economic impacts than the larger class of which it is a part.” Morrison, 529 U.S. at 615, 120 S.Ct. at 1752-53.