Court Opinion

ID: 9558525
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:11:22.961676+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:21.391138
License: Public Domain

EBEL, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur fully in the judgment and opinion of the court.
I write separately only to address in greater detail Defendant-Appellant Bol-den’s argument pertaining to the application of one of the statutory aggravating factors that the jury found in this case. Bolden argues that the statutory aggrava*631tor that applies when a defendant “has previously been convicted of 2 or more State or Federal offenses, punishable by a term of imprisonment of more than one year, committed on different occasions, involving the distribution of a controlled substance,” 18 U.S.C. § 3592(c)(10), does not apply to him. Bolden concedes that he has one such conviction for distributing cocaine. But Bolden argues that the second conviction on which the Government relied — a 1993 Michigan conviction for attempted possession of drugs with the intent to distribute — does not qualify.
Of course, possession of drugs with the intent to distribute is a crime “involving the distribution of a controlled substance.” See United States v. Matra, 841 F.2d 837, 843 (8th Cir.1988), abrogated on other grounds, United States v. McKinney, 120 F.3d 132, 133 (8th Cir.1997). It is, however, a more difficult issue whether this statutory aggravator includes a conviction for the attempt to possess drugs with the intent to distribute.
There is, as far as I can tell, no published case law interpreting and applying this statutory aggravating factor. The language of this aggravator is certainly broad enough to include attempts to commit the crime of distribution of a controlled substance because it contains the very inclusive word “involving” — “involving the distribution of a controlled substance.” (Emphasis added.)
Further support for the inclusion of attempted possession with the intent to distribute drugs in this aggravator may be found in the Supreme Court’s reasoning in James v. United States, 550 U.S. 192, 127 S.Ct. 1586,167 L.Ed.2d 532 (2007). James applied, not the Federal Death Penalty Act (“FDPA”), but the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”), 18 U.S.C. § 924(e). See 127 S.Ct. at 1590. Nevertheless, the ACCA provides a relevant analogy to the case here because the ACCA similarly includes statutory provisions that expressly include attempt offenses, and those that do not. In particular, the ACCA defines a violent felony under that Act to include
any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year ... that—
(I) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; or
(ii) is burglary, arson, or extortion, involves use of explosives, or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.
18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B) (emphasis added). Like the FDPA’s statutory aggravators, the ACCA thus expressly includes attempt offenses in one section, but does not mention them in the very next section of the statute. Nevertheless, the James Court - 32-rejected the argument that, because Congress expressly included attempts in one section, attempt offenses could not be included in the next section. See James, 127 S.Ct. at 1591-92. In its discussion of this issue, James concluded in dicta that the statutory language addressing an offense that “involves use of explosives” is broad enough to include an attempt offense: “An unsuccessful attempt to blow up a government building ... would involve the use of explosives.”15 Id. at 1592 (quotation, alterations omitted).
*632But when one considers the whole of the statutory aggravating factors set forth in the FDPA, an argument can be made that § 3592(c)(10) does not encompass a conviction for the attempt to possess drugs with the intent to distribute. Of the sixteen statutory aggravating factors available under § 3592(c), four aggrava-tors expressly include attempted offenses. See 18 U.S.C. § 3592(c)(1) (“The death, or injury resulting in death, occurred during the commission or attempted commission of, or during the immediate flight from the commission of’ one of twenty enumerated federal felonies.) (emphasis added); id. § 3592(c)(2) (“[T]he defendant has previously been convicted of a Federal or State offense punishable by a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year, involving the use or attempted or threatened use of a firearm ... against another person.”) (emphasis added); id. § 3592(c)(4) (“The defendant has previously been convicted of 2 or more Federal or State offenses, punishable by a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year, committed on different occasions, involving the infliction of, or attempted infliction of, serious bodily injury or death upon another person”) (emphasis added); id. § 3592(c)(16) (“The defendant intentionally killed or attempted to kill more than one person in a single criminal episode.”) (emphasis added). The language specifically including attempts in these four statutory aggravating factors and the conspicuous absence of attempt in the other aggravators suggests that Congress knew how to include attempt offenses when it intended to do so.16
Moreover, two of these aggravators, 18 U.S.C. § 3592(c)(2) and (4), specifically use both the terms “involving” and “attempt” together in the same provision. This further suggests that Congress did not intend its use of the word “involving” automatically to include attempt offenses.
“The long established plain language rule of statutory construction requires examining the text of the statute as a whole by considering its context, object, and policy.” United States v. Boesen, 541 F.3d 838, 846 (8th Cir.2008) (quotation omitted). “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 purposefully in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.” Russello v. United States, 464 U.S. 16, 23, 104 S.Ct. 296, 78 L.Ed.2d 17 (1983) (quotation, alteration omitted); see also United States v. Sampson, 335 F.Supp.2d 166, 212-14 (D.Mass.2004) (applying FDPA and concluding that, because Congress required that the defendant act knowingly in order for some of the statutory aggravators to apply, but did not expressly include a knowledge requirement in 18 U.S.C. § 3592(e)(ll), applying when the victim was “particularly vulnerable due to old *633age, youth, or infirmity,” Congress did not then intend to require proof that the defendant knew that his victim was vulnerable before that aggravating factor could apply).
But it is not apparent to me why Congress would expressly include attempt offenses in some of the FDPA’s statutory aggravating factors, but not others. And neither party points us to any legislative history that might better explain this seeming inconsistency. It may be that Congress intended to include attempts when the offenses at issue were particularly serious as, for example, offenses involving violence and weapons. But Congress has also often indicated that drug trafficking is serious criminal conduct. On the other hand, the difference in terminology could be explained by the fact that the statutory aggravators in § 3592 were often lifted from other pre-existing statutes, and additional aggravators were added to this section over the years. Thus, the various aggravators often come from different sources and their different language may simply be a consequence of this mixed pedigree with no actual significance intended by Congress between various phraseologies used.
Where a criminal statute is ambiguous, the rule of lenity requires us to give the defendant the benefit of the doubt. See United States v. Santos, — U.S.-, 128 S.Ct. 2020, 2025, 170 L.Ed.2d 912 (2008) (plurality) (noting that, “[u]nder a long line of our decisions, the tie must go to the defendant. The rule of lenity requires ambiguous criminal laws to be interpreted in favor of the defendants subjected to them”). And the rule of lenity “applies to sentencing as well as substantive [criminal statutory] provisions.” Rowe v. Lockhart, 736 F.2d 457, 461 (8th Cir.1984); see United States v. Allen, 247 F.3d 741, 767, 769 (8th Cir.2001) (discussing rule of lenity in addressing claim that multiple sentences of life in prison and death for the same underlying offense amounted to double jeopardy, but concluding rule of lenity did not apply in that case), cert. granted and judgment vacated, 536 U.S. 953, 122 S.Ct. 2653, 153 L.Ed.2d 830 (2002); cf. Rowe, 736 F.2d at 460-62 (discussing rule of lenity, but not applying it in that case to overturn thirty-year sentence for attempted capital murder).
Nevertheless, I am ultimately persuaded that § 3592(c)(10) is not ambiguous, and that that aggravating factor does encompass Bolden’s prior conviction for the attempted possession of drugs with the intent to distribute, for several reasons. First, no persuasive reason is apparent to me why Congress would have intentionally desired to exclude attempts under § 3592(c)(10) but to include attempts under many of the other aggravators. Thus, to give meaning to the differences in language between the various aggravators in § 3592(c) would be rank speculation. I do not believe rank speculation should trump the language of § 3592(c) standing alone. Second, James, in a different context, indicated that the fact that Congress expressly included attempted offenses in one subsection of a statute but not in another subsection did not mean that attempted convictions could not be included in a subsection lacking an express reference to attempt. See 127 S.Ct. at 1591-92. Third, the language Congress used in § 3592(c)(10)— prior convictions “involving the distribution of a controlled substance” (emphasis added) — is very broad language that would naturally encompass attempts to possess a controlled substance with the intent to distribute. Indeed, as James made clear, the word “involving” has explicitly been applied to include attempts. In James, the Court in dicta said that an unsuccessful attempt to blow up a government building would constitute a violent felony under the *634clause in 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii) that reads, “involves the use of explosives.”
For these reasons, I agree that § 3592(c)(10) encompassed Bolden’s prior conviction for the attempted possession of drugs with the intent to distribute.

. The specific issue James addressed was whether a prior conviction for attempted burglary was a violent felony under the ACCA. See 127 S.Ct. at 1590. In that case, the parties agreed that attempted burglary did not fall within either § 924(e)(2)(B)(i) or § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii)'s enumerated offense of burglary. See James, 127 S.Ct. at 1591. The James Court held that attempted burglary fell within § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii)’s residual language *632as an offense that "otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.” See James, 127 S.Ct. at 1593-98. In reaching this conclusion, James noted the breadth of the language of that residual clause. See id. at 1597-98.

. Congress wrote two other statutory aggravating factors using language broad enough to encompass convictions for both attempted and completed offenses. See 18 U.S.C. § 3592(c)(3) ("The defendant has previously been convicted of another Federal or State offense resulting in the death of a person, for which a sentence of life imprisonment or a sentence of death was authorized by statute.”); id. § 3592(c)(12) ("The defendant had previously been convicted of violating title II or III of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 for which a sentence of 5 or more years may be imposed or had previously been convicted of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise.”). Congress chose not to draft the aggravating factor at issue here in that same fashion.