U.S. v. Lewis

• Decision Date: 19 August 1996
• Docket Number: No. 95-30860,95-30860
• Citation: 92 F.3d 1371
• Parties: 45 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 465 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James M. LEWIS; Debra Faye Lewis, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1371

92 F.3d 1371

45 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 465

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James M. LEWIS; Debra Faye Lewis, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 95-30860.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Aug. 19, 1996.

Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing

En Banc Denied Sept. 16, 1996.

Josette Louise Cassiere, Assistant U.S. Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Shreveport, LA, for the United States.

Rebecca L. Hudsmith, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Lafayette, LA, for James M. Lewis.

Frank Chris Granger, Lake Charles, LA, for Debra Faye Lewis.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

Before JOLLY, DUHE, and STEWART, Circuit Judges.

STEWART, Circuit Judge:

James M. Lewis and Debra Faye Lewis appeal their convictions for first degree murder under Louisiana law pursuant to the

Assimilative Crimes Act. Because the federal murder statute and sentencing guidelines occupy the area of the law, they contend that the district court erred in refusing to dismiss their indictments. They also challenge the sufficiency of the evidence as well as evidentiary rulings made by the district court. Additionally, Debra Lewis argues that Battered Women's Syndrome diminished her capacity to form a specific intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm or to aid and abet James Lewis. For the following reasons, we reverse the district court's ruling regarding the indictments but affirm the defendants' convictions and sentences.

FACTS

James Lewis and his wife, Debra Lewis, were arrested for the beating death of four-year-old Jadasha D. Lowery, the biological daughter of James Lewis and Stacy Lowery. The death occurred on the military reservation at Fort Polk in Vernon Parish, Louisiana, where Mr. Lewis was stationed with the United States Army. ¹

On the day of her death, Jadasha was subjected to severe beatings, which resulted in several contusions and bruises on her scalp and which caused massive bruising over her entire body. The body bruises caused hemorrhages beneath the skin that redirected one-third to two-thirds of her entire blood volume from her circulatory system and into the tissues surrounding the injuries. The head injuries caused Jadasha to suffer cerebral edema, ² which was identified as the cause of her death. The indictment charged the Lewises with first degree murder under Louisiana law through the Assimilative Crimes Act. ³ After receiving guilty verdicts, both Lewises were sentenced to life imprisonment. The Lewises appealed.

DISCUSSION

A. ASSIMILATIVE CRIMES ACT.

The Lewises argue that the indictment under which they were charged is defective because it improperly charges them under La.Rev.Stat. 14:30A(5) when 18 U.S.C. § 1111 criminalizes the same conduct. Mr. Lewis asserts that first degree murder of a person under the age of twelve under the Louisiana statute is comparable to second degree murder under section 1111, with the minor age of the victim causing punishment to be enhanced under the sentencing guidelines. Mrs. Lewis contends that the government was statute "shopping" when it charged them under Louisiana law in order to obtain a lesser standard of proof and the benefit of more severe penalties in the event the jury returned verdicts on lesser included offenses.

Our examination of the Lewises' indictment requires us to analyze the Assimilative Crimes Act. Interpretations of statutes receive de novo review. Estate of Moore v. C.I.R., 53 F.3d 712, 714 (5th Cir.1995). Similarly, review of a district court's conclusion that an indictment is sufficient is reviewed under the de novo standard. United States v. Green, 964 F.2d 365, 372 (5th Cir.1992), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 1055, 113 S.Ct. 984, 122 L.Ed.2d 137 (1993). After evaluating the language of the ACA, Supreme Court precedent, and other federal jurisprudence, we are compelled to conclude that the Lewises' indictment is invalid.

The ACA makes punishable crimes occurring on federal enclaves although Congress has not expressly addressed the conduct Whoever within or upon any of the places now existing or hereafter reserved or acquired as provided in section 7 of this title, is guilty of any act or omission which, although not made punishable by any enactment of Congress, would be punishable if committed or omitted within the jurisdiction of the State ... in which such place is situated, by the laws thereof in force at the time of such act or omission, shall be guilty of a like offense and subject to like punishment.

in the federal statutes. The ACA provides:

18 U.S.C. § 13. Through the ACA the government may use state statutes to prosecute offenders on federal enclaves "only if no act of Congress directly makes the offender's conduct punishable." United States v. Brown, 608 F.2d 551, 553 (5th Cir.1986). The ACA fills in gaps existing in federal statutes regarding criminal law. Id. However, where Congress has enacted legislation criminalizing conduct on the enclaves, the federal statutes preempt the state laws regarding those crimes. United States v. Sharpnack, 355 U.S. 286, 291, 78 S.Ct. 291, 294-95, 2 L.Ed.2d 282 (1958).

The Supreme Court shed light on the limitations of the ACA in Williams v. United States, 327 U.S. 711, 66 S.Ct. 778, 90 L.Ed. 962 (1946). In Williams, the Court reversed the conviction of a white married man convicted under the Arizona statutory rape law pursuant to the ACA for having sex with a seventeen-year-old Indian girl on an Indian reservation. 327 U.S. at 725, 66 S.Ct. at 785. The federal statutes punished carnal knowledge of a minor girl when the victim was under the age of sixteen, whereas the Arizona statute punished the same conduct when the victim was under the age of eighteen. The Arizona statute provided a harsher penalty than the federal statute. Id. at 717, 66 S.Ct. at 781. Interpreting the language existing in the ACA at the time, the Court concluded that the precise acts of the defendant were made criminal under federal statutes addressing adultery or fornication as well as carnal knowledge, and the government could not enlarge the definition of the federal carnal knowledge crime by incorporating the state statutory rape statute through the ACA. Id. at 717-18, 66 S.Ct. at 781-82. The Court further noted that the ACA "has a natural place to fill through its supplementation of the Federal Criminal Code, without giving it the added effect of modifying or repealing existing provisions of the Federal Code." Id. at 718, 66 S.Ct. at 782. The language of the ACA referred "in a generic sense" to "acts of a general type or kind." Id. at 722, 66 S.Ct. at 784. The Court held that in Williams' case "not only has the generic act been covered by the [federal] definition of having carnal knowledge, but the specific acts have been made 'penal' by the [federal] definition of adultery." Id. at 723, 66 S.Ct. at 784.

This court, like the majority of the other circuits, ⁴ has interpreted Williams as establishing a "precise acts" test regarding the applicability of the ACA. See United States v. Brown, 608 F.2d 551, 554 (5th Cir.1979). In Brown, the court held that the government could prosecute the defendant under the Texas child abuse statute even though injury to a child could be punishable under the federal assault statute because the precise act of injury to a child was not proscribed by federal law and the state statute was designed to punish specific conduct of a different character than the conduct proscribed by the federal assault statute. Mrs. Brown was charged with injuring her husband's Similarly, in United States v. Fesler, 781 F.2d 384, 391 (5th Cir.1986), the court clarified that the federal statute and the state statute must involve different elements and must seek to punish different conduct. In Fesler, the Feslers were charged with murder under the federal statute and causing serious bodily injury under the Texas child abuse statute for the scalding death of their ten-month-old daughter whom they deliberately dipped in scalding water. The defendants alleged that the indictment violated the ACA. The court held that because the statutes covered different "precise acts," no violation had occurred. Id. at 391. The court noted that death of a human being, essential for the manslaughter conviction, was unnecessary for the child abuse conviction. The court further explained that "[i]t is important that the state statute seeks to punish a particular offense at which the federal statute is not aimed, child abuse." Id. Accordingly, the court upheld application of the ACA in this context.

biological two-year-old son, whom she struck on the head with a blunt, flat instrument. Though surgery revealed a subdural hematoma covering the left side of his brain, the child survived. The court in Brown rejected arguments that use of the child abuse statute enlarged the scope of the federal offense. It found the child abuse and assault statutes different because of the nature of the offense being punished. The court relied on the Second Circuit case, Fields v. United States, 438 F.2d 205 (2d Cir.1971), to demonstrate that child abuse is a different type of assault than the conduct covered under the federal assault statute.

This court consistently has found that child abuse constitutes a different "precise act" which the government may charge in addition to murder under the federal statute. See United States v. Webb, 796 F.2d 60, 62 (5th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1038, 107 S.Ct. 894, 93 L.Ed.2d 846 (1987) (convicted of second degree murder under the federal statute and injury to a child under the state statute for the death of a six-year-old boy whose head was slammed against a wall and who was scalded). Federal jurisprudence demonstrates that the different nature of the "act" regarding child abuse does not eliminate the need for seeking punishment for murder under the federal statute when the abuse results in death. See United States v....