U.S. v. Brittain, 93-1446

• Decision Date: 06 December 1994
• Docket Number: No. 93-1446,93-1446
• Citation: 41 F.3d 1409
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. John H. BRITTAIN, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Page 1409

41 F.3d 1409

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. John H. BRITTAIN, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 93-1446.

United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit.

Dec. 6, 1994.

Michael G. Katz, Federal Public Defender, Warren R. Williamson, Asst. Federal Public Defender, Denver, CO, and Caroline E. Durham for defendant-appellant.

Henry L. Solano, U.S. Atty., Thomas M. O'Rourke, Asst. U.S. Atty., Denver, CO, for plaintiff-appellee.

Before BALDOCK and EBEL, Circuit Judges, and BROWN, District Judge. ^*

WESLEY E. BROWN, Senior District Judge.

The issue in this appeal is whether bank larceny, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2113(b), is a lesser included offense of bank robbery, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2113(a). ¹ The district court determined that it was not a lesser included offense and refused the defendant's request for such an instruction. The jury found the defendant guilty on a charge of bank robbery under Sec. 2113(a). We conclude that Tenth Circuit precedent considers bank larceny to be a lesser included offense of bank robbery. We therefore vacate the judgment of the district court and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

On September 28, 1992, the defendant John H. Brittain walked into the Colorado National Bank in Longmont, Colorado, and entered a line of customers waiting for tellers. Jamie Marie Helgeland was working as a teller in the bank. When Helgeland had no customers in her line, she motioned to Brittain to move to her station. The defendant walked up to Helgeland and presented a hand-written note which stated:

Don't give any kind of alarm.

Put all of the $100. $50. & $20. in front of you.

Give them to me all at one time.

I have someone watching.

Govt.Exh. 1. Helgeland took $1,170.00 out of the teller drawer and gave it to the defendant, who walked out of the bank with the money. The deposits of the bank were insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Helgeland acted calmly during this episode but was afraid and concerned for her safety. When she read the words "I have someone watching" she felt "that maybe somebody would have come barging in there with a gun maybe, or I don't know, put myself in danger." Tr. Vol. 3 at 9. Ms. Helgeland's testimony indicated that the bank's policy in this type of situation was for the teller to do exactly what the person said to do. Id. at 12. After the defendant walked away from the teller station but before he left the bank, Helgeland pushed a silent alarm button. She cashed checks for the next customer in her line but did so hurriedly and with her hands trembling. She then informed another bank employee what had happened. The employee took Helgeland to a back room where she was interviewed about the incident. Helgeland was visibly upset during the interview.

On May 26, 1993, Trooper Robert Gemmel of the Nevada Highway Patrol found the defendant in the back of a U-Haul truck at a rest stop along a highway in Nevada. The defendant was apparently attempting to take his own life. The engine of the truck was running and a hose ran from the exhaust pipe to the enclosed back portion of the truck where the defendant was found by the trooper. Trooper Gemmel disconnected the hose and had the defendant come out of the back compartment of the truck. The defendant subsequently stated to Gemmel that he was wanted for robbery in Longmont, Colorado. The defendant explained that he had entered a bank in Longmont, passed a note to a teller and then walked out with the money.

II.

Section 2113 of title 18 of the United States Code is entitled "Bank robbery and incidental crimes." The defendant was indicted on one count of bank robbery under Sec. 2113(a), which provides in part:

Whoever, by force and violence, or by intimidation, takes, or attempts to take, from the person or presence of another, ... any property or money or any other thing of value belonging to, or in the care, custody, control, management, or possession of, any bank ...

Shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

At his trial the defendant requested that the jury be given a lesser included offense instruction based on subsection (b) of Sec. 2113. That subsection, commonly referred to as the "bank larceny" provision, states in part:

Whoever takes and carries away, with intent to steal or purloin, any property or money or other thing of value exceeding $100 belonging to, or in the care, custody, control, management, or possession of any bank, ... shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; ...

18 U.S.C. Sec. 2113(b). Counsel for the defense argued that there was some ambiguity in the evidence concerning whether the taking was "by intimidation." He asked that the jury be allowed to consider whether the defendant had committed bank larceny, which does not require proof of intimidation.

Rule 31(c) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure states that "[t]he defendant may be found guilty of an offense necessarily included in the offense charged...." The Supreme Court interpreted this rule in Schmuck v. United States, 489 U.S. 705, 109 S.Ct. 1443, 103 L.Ed.2d 734 (1989), and adopted the so-called "elements test" for identifying lesser included offenses. Under this test, one offense is not "necessarily included" in another "unless the elements of the lesser offense are a subset of the elements of the offense charged." Id., 489 U.S. at 716, 109 S.Ct. at 1450. "Where the lesser offense requires an element not required for the greater offense, no instruction is to be given under Rule 31(c)." Id.

The elements test does not depend upon inferences arising from the evidence nor does it inquire into similarities in the interests furthered by the statutes. Id. at 720, 109 S.Ct. at 1452-53. Instead, it involves a textual comparison of the criminal statutes. Id. By contrast the "inherent relationship test," an approach previously used by some circuits and which was rejected by the Supreme Court in Schmuck, inquired whether the offenses related to protection of the same interests and whether they were so related "that in the general nature of these crimes, though not necessarily invariably, proof of the lesser offense is necessarily presented as part of the showing of the commission of the greater offense." Id. The elements test, the Supreme Court observed, is consistent with the history and wording of Rule 31(c) as well as the constitutional requirement that the defendant be given notice of the charge against him, and it has the added benefit of being certain and predictable in its application. Id. at 716-21, 109 S.Ct. at 1450-53.

After examining the statutes at issue here, the district court applied the elements test and determined that bank larceny is not a lesser included offense because it contains an element that bank robbery does not: the intent to steal or purloin. ² The court recognized that Tenth Circuit cases had previously characterized bank larceny as a lesser included offense, but observed that it was unclear if those decisions had applied the elements test announced in Schmuck. Furthermore, the court noted, none of the Tenth Circuit cases had addressed the specific question of whether intent to steal was an element of bank robbery. The district court relied upon United States v. Gregory, 891 F.2d 732 (9th Cir.1989), in which the Ninth Circuit distinguished its prior rulings and concluded that the elements test required it to find that bank larceny was not a lesser included offense of bank robbery.

III.

In United States v. Slater, 692 F.2d 107 (10th Cir.1982), we reversed a defendant's conviction for bank robbery under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2113(a) because of the trial court's failure to give a lesser included instruction on bank larceny, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2113(b). In support of this holding we stated: "The crime of bank robbery contains all the elements of bank larceny." Id. at 109 (citing United States v. Carter, 540 F.2d 753 (4th Cir.1976) and Larson v. United States, 296 F.2d 80 (10th Cir.1961)). We subsequently cited Slater in a post-Schmuck decision, United States v. Smith, 10 F.3d 724 (10th Cir.1993), and in the course of rejecting a defendant's claim for ineffective assistance of counsel we reiterated Slater 's conclusion that bank larceny is a lesser included offense of bank robbery. ³ Cf. United States v. Combs, 634 F.2d 1295, 1297 (10th Cir.1980), cert. denied, 451 U.S. 913, 101 S.Ct. 1987, 68 L.Ed.2d 304 (1981) ("18 U.S.C. Sec. 2113(a) and (b) are lesser and greater forms of the same offense and hence may not be the basis of cumulative punishment.")

We note at the outset that Slater 's statement regarding the elements of bank larceny and bank robbery raises some troubling questions. Several issues relevant to the lesser included inquiry were apparently not raised (and were therefore not addressed) in Slater. Three concerns in particular seem relevant in light of Slater's cryptic reference to the elements of these offenses. We outline these concerns below.

A. Plain Language of the Statute. First and foremost, the language of Sec. 2113 calls into question Slater's conclusion that bank robbery contains all the elements of bank larceny. Section 2113(b), the bank larceny provision, clearly requires a taking "with intent to steal or purloin." One must infer from Slater's holding that intent to steal or purloin is also an element of bank robbery. But the bank robbery provision, Sec. 2113(a), contains no such language. A straightforward comparison of the statutory elements of the offenses, then, would seem to require a finding that bank larceny is not a lesser included offense of bank robbery. ⁴

B. History of Sec. 2113. Although Sec. 2113's somewhat tortured past could provide a basis for developing arguments either way, there is nothing in the legislative history to specifically indicate that Congress intended Sec. 2113(a) to contain an "intent to steal" element identical to Sec. 2113...