U.S. v. Gluzman, 96 Cr. 323 (BDP).

• Decision Date: 17 January 1997
• Docket Number: No. 96 Cr. 323 (BDP).,96 Cr. 323 (BDP).
• Citation: 953 F.Supp. 84
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Rita GLUZMAN, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

953 F.Supp. 84

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Rita GLUZMAN, Defendant.

No. 96 Cr. 323 (BDP).

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

January 17, 1997.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Cathy Seibel, Diedre M. Daly, Asst. U.S. Attys., White Plains, NY, for U.S.

Lawrence Hochheiser, Michael Rosen, Diarmund White, New York City, for Defendant.

PARKER, District Judge.

On April 25, 1996, defendant Rita Gluzman ("Gluzman") was indicted for conspiring to commit interstate domestic violence and for committing interstate domestic violence in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2261 (1996).¹ Gluzman moves to dismiss the indictment on the ground that Congress, when it enacted section 2261, exceeded its authority under the Commerce Clause. See U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8, cl. 3. For the reasons stated below, I find the challenged provision to be a constitutional exercise of Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce. Accordingly, the motion to dismiss is denied.

BACKGROUND

The facts as alleged by the government are as follows.² In the late morning of April 7, 1996, Police Officer Richard Freeman happened upon Vladimir Zelenin dumping the body parts of Yakov Gluzman, Rita Gluzman's husband, into the Passaic River in New York near ECI Technology, Inc. ("ECI"), a company co-owned by Rita and Yakov Gluzman. Upon this inadvertent discovery, Zelenin, after being advised of his constitutional rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), confessed that he, with the help of his cousin Rita Gluzman, had murdered Yakov Gluzman.

According to Zelenin, an employee of ECI, Gluzman approached him approximately one month earlier to enlist him in the murder of her estranged husband. Apparently, Gluzman told Zelenin that she and her husband were undergoing divorce proceedings as a result of which ECI would shut down and Zelenin would lose his job. Zelenin agreed to assist Gluzman in the murder.

On April 5, 1996, Gluzman allegedly told Zelenin that she wanted to kill her husband the next day, before her husband came to her house to collect some of his belongings. Zelenin stated that on the appointed day, April 6, 1996, he met Gluzman in New Jersey and drove with her to Pearl River, New York, to commit the murder, armed with an ax and a knife. Once in Pearl River, they entered Yakov Gluzman's apartment and awaited his return. When he arrived, Gluzman and Zelenin killed him together. Zelenin then dismembered the body while Gluzman cleaned the apartment of traces of the crime.

Zelenin admits to placing Yakov Gluzman's body parts into plastic bags, which were then loaded into the trunks of a Ford Taurus registered to ECI and Yakov Gluzman's Nissan Maxima. Gluzman and Zelenin drove the two cars to the ECI parking lot, after which Zelenin drove Gluzman to her home in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. They allegedly agreed that Zelenin would return to ECI and dump the bags filled with Yakov Gluzman's body parts into the nearby Passaic River and then meet later that day at ECI. The discovery of Zelenin by Freeman and Zelenin's subsequent arrest prevented this later rendezvous.

Gluzman disappeared after the murder. On April 12, 1996, personnel at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory ("the Laboratory") in Long Island, New York, discovered a trespasser in a cottage on the premises. When Arthur Brings, director of facilities at the Laboratory, approached the trespasser, he recognized her as Rita Gluzman, who he knew from past work-related visits that she and her husband had made to the Laboratory. Later that day, Gluzman was arrested by the Nassau County authorities and charged with burglary of the Laboratory cabin. On April 18, 1996, Gluzman was arrested by federal agents and charged in a federal complaint with conspiracy to violate and a substantive violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2261.

On April 25, 1996, a grand jury returned a two count indictment against Gluzman, charging her with conspiracy to commit interstate domestic violence and the commission of interstate domestic violence. Specifically, the indictment charges that Gluzman both conspired to, and actually did, travel from New Jersey to New York with the intent to murder her estranged husband, and that, once in New York, she murdered him, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2261.

Gluzman subsequently brought this motion to dismiss her indictment arguing that section 2261 neither regulates a commercial activity nor contains a requirement that the activity in question be connected to interstate commerce, and therefore its enactment exceeded the authority of Congress to legislate under the Commerce Clause. Gluzman argues that the legislative history of 18 U.S.C. § 2261 does not support Congress' authority to enact the section under the Commerce Clause. She further argues that Congress is limited, under its Commerce powers, to regulating only those activities that have an economic component or that implicate some other attribute of commerce. Consequently, according to Gluzman, the interstate conduct prohibited by section 2261 falls beyond Congress' authority.

DISCUSSION

Since one of Gluzman's principle arguments is that section 2261 is unsupported by its legislative history, we begin with an examination of the pertinent Congressional findings. In September 1994, Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act of 1993 ("VAWA") as part of the larger Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, P.L. 103-322; see S.Rep. No. 103-138, at 38 (1993). Section 221, Title II of the VAWA (codified as 18 U.S.C. § 2261) contains the challenged provision, which makes it a crime for a person to travel across a state line "with the intent to injure, harass, or intimidate that person's spouse or intimate partner," and "in the course of or as a result of such travel [to] intentionally commit[] a crime of violence caus[ing] bodily injury to such spouse or intimate partner." 18 U.S.C. § 2261(a)(1).

The legislative history of the VAWA contains little express consideration of section 2261 and the impact on interstate commerce of traveling across state lines to commit domestic violence. In its discussion of the VAWA generally, however, Congress noted that "[o]ur society pays a heavy price for [domestic] violence: 1 million women a year seek medical attention for injuries caused by violence at the hands of a male partner, children in homes with family violence are 15 times more likely to be abused or neglected than children in peaceful homes; and finally, estimates suggest that we spend $5 to $10 billion a year on health care, criminal justice, and other social costs of domestic violence." S.Rep. No. 103-138, at 41.

In describing the purpose of section 2261, Congress did note that it served to fill the "[g]aps in the legal protection offered to victims of domestic violence ... [where] States and localities have not addressed the issue sufficiently." S.Rep. No. 103-138, at 43. The Committee on the Judiciary further stated that it believed that the provisions in section 2261 "constitute an appropriate response to the problem[s] of domestic violence which, because of their interstate nature, transcend the abilities of State law enforcement agencies. The committee's legislation does not constitute an `overfederalization' of crimes. Under title 18 of the United States Code, there are provisions that make it a crime to cross a State line with falsely made dentures or with a cow." S.Rep. No. 103-138, at 62.

Gluzman argues, nonetheless, that the legislative history of 18 U.S.C. § 2261 fails to indicate that the statute as finally enacted was based on any findings in that history that the interstate travel in furtherance of spousal abuse was activity that affected interstate commerce. She further contends that section 2261 neither regulates a commercial activity nor contains a requirement that the activity in question be connected to interstate commerce, and therefore its enactment exceeded the authority of Congress to legislate under the Commerce Clause.

The challenged statutory provision arose in an area which Congressional power is exceedingly broad. Indeed, the power is "complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations, other than are prescribed in the constitution." Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 1, 196, 6 L.Ed. 23 (1824). Thus, "the task of a court that is asked to determine whether a particular exercise of congressional power is valid under the Commerce Clause is relatively narrow." Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Ass'n, Inc., 452 U.S. 264, 276, 101 S.Ct. 2352, 2360, 69 L.Ed.2d 1 (1981).

While a court's inquiry when examining the constitutionality of a congressional enactment is an independent one, the court will consider congressional findings, including congressional committee findings. United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, ___, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 1631, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995). Where the court determines that the legislators, "in light of facts and testimony before them, have a rational basis for finding a chosen regulatory scheme necessary to the protection of commerce," the court's investigation is completed. Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294, 303-04, 85 S.Ct. 377, 383, 13 L.Ed.2d 290 (1964); see also Hodel, 452 U.S. at 276, 101 S.Ct. at 2360.

Review of the legislative history of the section, though sparse, indicates that Congress had a rational basis for concluding that the regulation of interstate domestic violence was "reasonably adapted to [an] end permitted by the Constitution." Hodel, 452 U.S. at 276, 101 S.Ct. at 2360. Congress, in enacting section 2261, alluded to the substantial toll of domestic violence on the physical and economic welfare of individuals directly affected by such violence as well as public generally. See S.Rep. No. 103-138 at 41. Although gender-based violence, particularly when it is targeted against women, was clearly of primary concern to Congress, it was not the exclusive...