Santiago v. Alonso, No. 97-2737 DRD.
| Decision Date | 31 March 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 97-2737 DRD. |
| Citation | 96 F.Supp.2d 58 |
| Parties | Daisy Annette SANTIAGO, Plaintiff, v. Osvaldo Rios ALONSO, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico |
Frank D. Inserni-Milam, San Juan, PR, for plaintiff.
Roberto O. Maldonado-Nieves, Esq. Franklin D. Roosevelt, San Juan, PR, for defendant.
Desiree Laborde-Sanfiorenzo, U.S. Attorney's Office, Criminal Division, San Juan, PR, John R. Tyler, Atty Dept of Justice, Civil Division, Washington, DC, for movant.
Before the Court is Defendant's Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's Complaint for civil damages on grounds of the unconstitutionality of the Civil Rights provisions of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. § 13981 (Docket No. 58); and the United States' Motion to Intervene, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2403(a), in order to defend the constitutionality of said provisions. (Docket No. 67). Because the Court determines that section 13981 of the Violence Against Women Act exceeds Congress' legislative scope under both the Commerce Clause and the Enforcement Clause of the United States Constitution, Defendant's Motion to Dismiss is GRANTED.
Congress enacted the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (hereinafter "VAWA") as a response to increasing nationwide problems with domestic violence, sexual assault, and other forms of violent crimes against women. In enacting said statute, Congress specifically invoked its legislative powers under the Commerce Clause and § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, 42 U.S.C. § 13981(a), and created a federal substantive right "to be free from crimes of violence motivated by gender." 42 U.S.C. § 13981(b). Further, Congress provided victims of these crimes with a private cause of action for compensatory and punitive damages, injunctive relief and any other appropriate remedy against any person who commits a crime of violence motivated by gender. 42 U.S.C § 13981(b) & (c). The VAWA's self-stated purpose is "to protect the civil rights of victims of violence motivated by gender and to promote public safety, health and activities affecting interstate commerce by establishing a Federal civil rights cause of action for victims of crimes of violence motivated by gender." 42 U.S.C. § 13981(a).
Despite the VAWA's expressed purpose of promoting activities "affecting interstate commerce," Defendants request dismissal of Plaintiff's cause of action arguing that section 13981 exceeds the scope of Congress' authority under both the Commerce Clause and § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support for this position, Defendants invoke the Supreme Court's decision in U.S. v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 567, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995), and the Fourth Circuit's decision in Brzonkala v. Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 169 F.3d 820 (4th Cir.1999).1 Briefly stated, these decisions hold that Congress' legislative power over activities that substantially affect interstate commerce is limited to the regulation of economic activities arising out of or having a connection with interstate commerce or to the regulation of non-economic activities as long as the regulating statute has a jurisdictional requirement that the specific incident at issue is somehow linked to interstate commerce. Further, Brzonkala holds that section 13981 is not a valid exercise under the Fourteenth Amendment because section 13981 is addressed exclusively at private action, hence the state action requirement of the Equal Protection Clause is not met.
The United States intervened to join Plaintiff in defending section 13981. The main argument advanced was that Brzonkala's reading of Lopez is far too narrow and is inconsistent with judicial precedent that establishes the constitutional requirements of the Commerce and Equal Protection Clauses. Further, the United States argued that section 13981 is an appropriate exercise of Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce because violence against women is a widespread social problem with ultimate effects on the national economy; and under the Fourteenth Amendment because bias and discrimination against women in the state criminal justice systems often deny legal redress to the victims of gender-motivated crimes of violence.
In Lopez the Supreme Court discussed the development of Commerce Clause jurisprudence explaining that after many years of developing this body of law in the mid 1900's the Court "ushered into an era that greatly expanded the previously defined authority of Congress under that Clause." 514 U.S. at 556, 115 S.Ct. at 1628. First, in NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1, 57 S.Ct. 615, 81 L.Ed. 893 (1937), the Court upheld the National Labor Relations Act against a Commerce Clause challenge and held that intrastate activities that "have such a close and substantial relation to interstate commerce that their control is essential or appropriate to protect that commerce from burdens and obstructions" are within Congress' power to regulate. Id. at 37, 57 S.Ct. at 624. Later, in Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 63 S.Ct. 82, 87 L.Ed. 122 (1942), the Court upheld the application of amendments to the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 to the production and consumption of homegrown wheat and stated that "even if an appellee's activity be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever, its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce..." Id. at 125, 63 S.Ct. at 89.
According to Lopez, the expansion in the Supreme Court's view of congressional power under the Commerce Clause was due, at least in part, to the Court's 514 U.S. at 556, 115 S.Ct. at 1628. But these expansive changes were also due to the Court's view "that earlier Commerce Clause cases artificially had constrained the authority of Congress to regulate interstate commerce." Id. Thus followed an era in which the Court upheld a wide variety of congressional Acts regulating intrastate economic activity which the Court concluded had a substantial effect on interstate commerce. See Id. at 559-560, 115 S.Ct. at 1630.
Despite the above, the Lopez court made clear that even those cases which greatly expanded Congress' power under the Commerce Clause had recognized that congressional power was subject to outer limits. For example, in Jones the Court warned that the scope of Congress' Commerce Clause power had to be "considered in light of our dual system of government and may not be extended so as to embrace effects upon interstate commerce so indirect and remote that to embrace them, in view of our complex society, would effectually obliterate the distinction between what is national and what is local and create a completely centralized government." 301 U.S. at 37, 57 S.Ct. at 624. Accordingly, since the time when those expanding decisions where reached, the Supreme Court has "heeded that warning and undertaken to decide whether a rational basis existed for concluding that a regulated activity sufficiently affected interstate commerce." Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558, 115 S.Ct. at 1629. Further, even those expansive cases explicitly stated that the Court had not "declared that Congress may use a relatively trivial impact on commerce as an excuse for broad general regulation of state or private activities." Wickard, 317 U.S. at 126, n. 27, 63 S.Ct. at 89-90, n. 27. Rather, "[t]he Court has said only that where a general regulatory statute bears a substantial relation to commerce, the de minimis character of individual instances arising under that statute is of no consequence." Id. ().
Following the above doctrine, the Lopez court identified three broad areas that Congress has been allowed to regulate under the Commerce Clause.
First, Congress may regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce. Second, Congress is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce or persons or things in interstate commerce even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities. Finally, Congress commerce authority includes the power to regulate those activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce, i.e., those activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.
U.S. v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 558-559, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 1629, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995) (citations omitted). See also: U.S. v. Henson, 123 F.3d 1226, 1232 (9th Cir.1997); U.S. v. Knutson, 113 F.3d 27, 29 (5th Cir.1997); U.S. v. Kim, 94 F.3d 1247, 1249 (9th Cir.1996); U.S. v. Lerebours, 87 F.3d 582, 584-85 (1st Cir.1996); U.S. v. Wilson, 73 F.3d 675, 685 (7th Cir.1995); U.S. v. Salmiento, 898 F.Supp. 45, 46 (D.P.R. 1995), affirmed at U.S. v. Zorrilla, 93 F.3d 7 (1st Cir.1996).
Like in Lopez, the first two of the above categories are irrelevant to the case at bar, since the VAWA "is not a regulation of the use of the channels or interstate commerce, nor is it an attempt to prohibit the interstate transportation of a commodity through the channels of commerce; nor can [the VAWA] be justified as a regulation [protecting] an instrumentality of interstate commerce or a thing in interstate commerce." 514 U.S. at 559, 115 S.Ct. at 1630. Therefore, like in Lopez, "if [the VAWA] is to be sustained, it must be under the third category as a regulation of an activity that substantially affects interstate commerce." Id.
When considering the constitutionality of a statute that falls within the third category of activities that may be regulated under the Commerce Clause, "the proper test requires an analysis of whether the...
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