U.S. v. Woodruff, 96-10397

Citation122 F.3d 1185
Decision Date15 July 1997
Docket NumberNo. 96-10397,96-10397
Parties97 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 6258, 97 Daily Journal D.A.R. 10,231 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Kevin Paul WOODRUFF, Defendant-Appellee.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (9th Circuit)

Craig J. Jacobsen, Assistant United States Attorney, Oakland, CA, for plaintiff-appellant.

Ephraim Margolin, Law Offices of Ephraim Margolin, San Francisco, CA, for defendant-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court Northern District of California; Vaughn R. Walker, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CR-93-00438-VRW.

Before: FARRIS and TASHIMA, Circuit Judges, and STAGG, Senior District Judge **

FARRIS, Circuit Judge:

Kevin Woodruff was convicted by a jury of four counts of interfering with interstate commerce by robbery in violation of the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a). The district court granted Woodruff's post-verdict motion for a judgment of acquittal on all counts. 941 F.Supp. 910 (N.D.Cal.1996). The United States appeals. We vacate the judgment of acquittal and remand.

In a Hobbs Act robbery prosecution, the government is required to prove two things: (1) that the defendant either committed or attempted to commit a robbery, and (2) a nexus between the defendant's acts and interstate commerce. 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a); Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 218, 80 S.Ct. 270, 273, 4 L.Ed.2d 252 (1960). Each is an element of the crime that must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Nukida, 8 F.3d 665, 669-73 (9th Cir.1993).

The district court held that the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995), overruled our well-settled rule that the government need show only a de minimis effect on interstate commerce to satisfy the Hobbs Act's jurisdictional element. See, e.g., United States v. Phillips, 577 F.2d 495, 501 (9th Cir.1978); United States v. Zemek, 634 F.2d 1159, 1173 n. 20 (9th Cir.1980). After Lopez, the district court reasoned, the government was required to prove that a defendant's conduct had a substantial effect on interstate commerce in order to support a Hobbs Act robbery charge. Because in the district court's opinion, no reasonable juror could have found that Woodruff's conduct had such an effect, the court entered a judgment of acquittal for Woodruff.

We have since held that Lopez did not render our use of the de minimis standard in Hobbs Act robbery cases constitutionally infirm. In United States v. Atcheson, 94 F.3d 1237, 1241-43 (9th Cir.1996), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 117 S.Ct. 1096, 137 L.Ed.2d 229 (1997), we affirmed a Hobbs Act robbery conviction using the de minimis effect standard, rejecting the defendants' argument that Lopez had undermined its validity. We explained that unlike the Gun-Free School Zones Act at issue in Lopez, "which was aimed at purely local, noneconomic activities," see Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558-59, 115 S.Ct. at 1630-31 (describing the Gun-Free School Zones Act as "a criminal statute that by its terms has nothing to do with 'commerce' or any sort of economic enterprise"), the Hobbs Act is "directly aimed at economic activity" that in some way or degree affects interstate commerce. Atcheson, 94 F.3d at 1242. Lopez's "substantially affects" test is not applicable to the Hobbs Act, we explained, because the Lopez test was developed "to define the extent of Congress's power over purely intrastate commercial activities that nonetheless have substantial inter state effects," id. (quoting United States v. Robertson, 514 U.S. 669, 115 S.Ct. 1732, 131 L.Ed.2d 714 (1995)(per curiam)(emphasis in original)), and the Hobbs Act "is concerned solely with inter state, rather than intra state, activities." Id.

By requiring the government to show that Woodruff's...

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10 cases
  • United States v. Luong
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit
    • July 17, 2020
    ...commit a robbery, and (2) a nexus between the defendant's acts and interstate commerce." Id. (quoting United States v. Woodruff , 122 F.3d 1185, 1185 (9th Cir. 1997) (" Woodruff II ")). But while "the interstate commerce nexus is an element that ‘must be proved at trial[,] ... it need not .......
  • U.S. v. Nelson
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit
    • February 26, 1998
    ...F.3d at 1242 (emphasis in original). Moreover, the holding of Atcheson was recently reaffirmed by this court in United States v. Woodruff, 122 F.3d 1185, 1186 (9th Cir.1997) (reaffirming that, even after Lopez, the government need only show a de minimis effect on interstate commerce to sati......
  • U.S. v. Rodriguez
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit
    • February 23, 2004
    ...or attempted to commit a robbery, and (2) a nexus between the defendant's acts and interstate commerce." United States v. Woodruff, 122 F.3d 1185, 1185 (9th Cir.1997) (citing 18 U.S.C. § Count Two of the indictment charged that defendants "conspired and agreed with each other to commit an o......
  • U.S. v. Capati, Criminal No. 94-1238-R.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Southern District of California
    • September 29, 1997
    ...of this issue,2 it has now become clear that Defendants' argument is foreclosed by the Ninth Circuit's decisions in United States v. Woodruff, 122 F.3d 1185 (9th Cir.1997), and United States v. Atcheson, 94 F.3d 1237 (9th Cir.1996), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 1096, 137 L.Ed.2d 22......
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