U.S. v. Crawford, 96-2808

• Decision Date: 23 June 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96-2808,96-2808
• Citation: 115 F.3d 1397
• Parties: 147 A.L.R. Fed. 681 UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Lynn Truman CRAWFORD, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 1397

115 F.3d 1397

147 A.L.R. Fed. 681

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Lynn Truman CRAWFORD, Appellant.

No. 96-2808.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Nov. 18, 1996.

Decided June 23, 1997.

Donald G. Kelly, Natchitoches, LA, argued (T. Taylor, Townsend, on the brief), for appellant.

David S. Kris, Department of Justice, Washington, DC, argued (Mary Jane Lyle, Assistant United States Attorney, on the brief), for appellee.

Before McMILLIAN, Circuit Judge, HENLEY, Senior Circuit Judge, and MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

McMILLIAN, Circuit Judge.

Lynn Truman Crawford appeals from a final judgment entered in the United States District Court ¹ for the Eastern District of Missouri, following a bench trial, finding him guilty on one count of violating the Child Support Recovery Act of 1992 (CSRA), 18 U.S.C. § 228, and sentencing him to six months imprisonment and ordering him to pay a special assessment of $25.00 and restitution in the amount of $91,547.14 plus post-judgment interest. United States v. Crawford, No. 4:96CR42 (E.D.Mo. July 2, 1996) (judgment). For reversal, Crawford argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the indictment on grounds that: (1) the CSRA exceeds Congress's regulatory powers under the commerce clause; (2) the CSRA violates the Tenth Amendment; (3) his rights under the ex post facto clause have been violated; and (4) venue in the Eastern District of Missouri is improper. In addition, Crawford argues that the evidence at trial was insufficient to support his conviction. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm.

Background

The underlying facts are not in dispute. Crawford, a physician who specializes in emergency medicine, married Mona Tague on September 1, 1984, in the state of Missouri. Shortly thereafter, the couple moved to Texas. While in Texas, they had two daughters, born in 1985 and 1986. The couple separated in February 1988, and Tague retained custody of the two children.

On March 23, 1988, a Texas state court issued a temporary order which required Crawford to make payments of $1000 per month in child support, to be paid through the Dallas County Child Support Office in Dallas, Texas. Crawford made the monthly payments until November 1988, when he terminated the payments. One year later, in November 1989, the Texas state court found that Crawford owed over $12,000 in child support and held him in contempt. The following year, in November 1990, the Texas state court issued a final divorce decree, which confirmed Crawford's monthly child support obligation.

Meanwhile, Tague and the two children had moved from Texas to Missouri, where they have resided ever since. From the time of the couple's separation until Crawford's arrest in February 1996, Crawford continued to reside in Texas and Louisiana and had no significant contact with the state of Missouri. In that time period, he earned at least $230,000.

On February 15, 1996, Crawford was indicted in the Eastern District of Missouri on one count of violating the CSRA ² from October 31, 1992, through February 14, 1996. ³ A warrant was issued for his arrest. On February 26, 1996, Crawford was arrested in Louisiana, and his initial appearance was held in United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. The same day, Crawford filed in the Western District of Louisiana a motion to dismiss the indictment, arguing, among other things, that the CSRA is unconstitutional under the commerce clause and the Tenth Amendment, that his rights under the ex post facto clause were being violated, and that venue was improper in the Eastern District of Missouri. He also filed a motion to transfer the case from the Eastern District of Missouri to the Western District of Louisiana. On February 28, 1996, following a detention hearing in the Western District of Louisiana, Crawford was ordered detained without bond. The Louisiana district court did not rule on Crawford's pending motions. Thereafter, before the Eastern District of Missouri, Crawford withdrew his motion to transfer the case to the Western District of Louisiana. Crawford's outstanding motion to dismiss the indictment was assigned to a magistrate judge ⁴ in the Eastern District of Missouri for a report and recommendation.

The magistrate judge held an evidentiary hearing and thereafter recommended denial of Crawford's motion to dismiss the indictment. Id. (Apr. 26, 1996) (report and recommendation). The district court adopted the magistrate judge's report and recommendation and, accordingly, denied the motion. Id. (May 30, 1996) (order). The case proceeded to trial. Following a one-day bench trial, the district court found Crawford guilty on one count of violating the CSRA (the only count in the indictment). Crawford was sentenced to six months imprisonment and ordered to pay a special assessment of $25.00 and restitution in the amount of $91,547.14 plus interest. ⁵ Id. (July 2, 1996) (judgment). This appeal followed.

Discussion

Commerce clause

Crawford first argues that Congress, in enacting the CSRA, exceeded its power "to regulate Commerce ... among the several States," as granted under the commerce clause of the United States Constitution. U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3. Crawford maintains, and we agree, that analysis of this constitutional issue is governed by United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 557-61, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 1629-30, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995) (Lopez ), in which the Supreme Court identified and discussed three broad categories of permissible regulation under Congress's commerce power: (1) regulation of the use of channels of interstate commerce; (2) regulation and protection of the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce; and (3) regulation of activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce.

Crawford maintains that the CSRA does not fit within any of these categories. Crawford argues that the payment of child support is incidental to divorce and entirely unrelated to interstate commerce. He contends "[t]he only nexus to interstate commerce in this case is the fact that the parties reside in different states"; that, he argues, is "not sufficient to confer federal jurisdiction and should not be held synonymous with 'interstate commerce.' " Brief for Appellant at 7. Crawford additionally argues that the enforcement of the CSRA in the present case is particularly onerous because it was his former wife (the custodial parent), not he, who moved out of state and created the circumstances permitting application of the CSRA. We disagree.

We review questions involving the constitutionality of a federal statute de novo. United States v. McMasters, 90 F.3d 1394, 1397 (8th Cir.1996), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 718, 136 L.Ed.2d 636 (1997). Upon de novo review, we conclude that the CSRA is not an unconstitutional exercise of Congress's regulatory powers under the commerce clause. Accord United States v. Johnson, 114 F.3d 476, 479-81 (4th Cir.1997) (Johnson ); United States v. Parker, 108 F.3d 28, 29-31 (3d Cir.1997) (Parker ); United States v. Bongiorno, 106 F.3d 1027, 1030-33 (1st Cir.1997) (Bongiorno ); United States v. Hampshire, 95 F.3d 999, 1001-04 (10th Cir.1996) (Hampshire ), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 753, 136 L.Ed.2d 690 (1997); United States v. Mussari, 95 F.3d 787, 790-91 (9th Cir.1996) (Mussari ), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 1567, 137 L.Ed.2d 712 (1997); United States v. Sage, 92 F.3d 101, 104-07 (2d Cir.1996) (Sage ), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 784, 136 L.Ed.2d 727 (1997). Contrary to Crawford's contentions, the constitutionality of the CSRA under the commerce clause does not rely solely upon the fact that, in each instance, the parent-defendant and the child-victim reside in different states. A payment of child support on behalf of an out-of-state child is, by definition, a type of transaction in which money must cross state lines and, moreover, the money must change hands outside of a single household. Such payments, or the debts resulting from nonpayment, are things in, or having a substantial relation to, interstate commerce. We therefore conclude that enactment of the CSRA was a constitutional exercise of Congress's commerce power within either the second or the third category of regulations recognized in Lopez. As the Supreme Court observed in Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 127-28, 63 S.Ct. 82, 90-91, 87 L.Ed. 122 (1942) (Wickard ), although one's contribution to interstate commerce may be "trivial by itself," that will not remove his or her activities from the scope of federal regulation where that contribution, "taken together with that of many others similarly situated, is far from trivial." ⁶ Cf. Lopez, 514 U.S. at 559-67, 115 S.Ct. at 1630-33 (holding that the activity being regulated by the Gun Free School Zones Act of 1990 (i.e., knowing possession of a firearm in a school zone) did not substantially affect interstate commerce, even when viewed in the aggregate). Furthermore, payment of child support on behalf of an out-of-state child requires the use of channels of interstate commerce, which renders the CSRA constitutional under the first Lopez category as well. Finally, Congress's power to regulate such activities is not precluded merely where, as here, the child moved away while the parent-defendant remained in the same location at all relevant times. The constitutionality of the CSRA is based upon the relationship between the regulated activity and interstate commerce, irrespective of the fact that the parent-defendant's own performance, or nonperformance, has remained locally confined. See, e.g., Wickard, 317 U.S at 125, 63 S.Ct. at 89 ("even if 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") (...