United States v. Hollingsworth, 13-31265
| Decision Date | 14 April 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 13-31265,13-31265 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee v. DAVID W. HOLLINGSWORTH, Defendant - Appellant |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit) |
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
DAVID W. HOLLINGSWORTH, Defendant - Appellant
No. 13-31265
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
April 14, 2015
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana
Before HIGGINBOTHAM, CLEMENT, and HIGGINSON, Circuit Judges.
EDITH BROWN CLEMENT, Circuit Judge:
A federal magistrate judge tried defendant-appellant David W. Hollingsworth ("Hollingsworth") for a petty offense committed on a federal enclave.1 The magistrate judge conducted a bench trial, entered a verdict of guilty, and sentenced Hollingsworth to six months in federal prison.
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Hollingsworth appealed to the federal district court.2 The district court affirmed the judgment and sentence entered by the magistrate judge.3 Hollingsworth now appeals to this court.4 For the reasons explained below, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
Hollingsworth was charged with violating 18 U.S.C. § 113(a)(5), a petty offense,5 at the Naval Air Station Joint Reverse Base New Orleans, a military base located in Belle Chasse, Louisiana ("Belle Chasse"). It is uncontested that Belle Chasse is a federal enclave under U.S. CONST. Art. I, § 8, cl. 17 ("Clause 17"),6 and § 113 is effective on such enclaves. See 18 U.S.C. § 113(a) (providing that law applies "within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States"). Hollingsworth objected to trial before the federal magistrate judge, but the magistrate judge held that she had jurisdiction to try Hollingsworth without his consent. Hollingsworth appealed his conviction to
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the district court, arguing that he had a right to a jury trial. The district court affirmed the conviction and sentence entered by the magistrate judge.
We apply the same standard of review used by the district court. Peck, 545 F.2d at 964 ("In our review we apply to the magistrate the same standard used by the district court."). Thus we review the magistrate judge's findings of fact for clear error and conclusions of law de novo. Compare Fed. R. Crim. P. 58(g)(2)(D) (providing that district court's review of magistrate judge's judgment "is the same as in an appeal to the court of appeals from a judgment entered by a district judge"), with Mid-Continent Cas. Co. v. Davis, 683 F.3d 651, 654 (5th Cir. 2012) ("In an appeal from a district court's final judgment following a bench trial, we review the district court's findings of fact for clear error and review conclusions of law de novo.").
Hollingsworth now argues for the first time that he has a constitutional right to trial before an Art. III judge.7 The Government argues that, because Belle Chasse is a federal enclave, Hollingsworth does not have a right to trial before an Art. III judge.
In Palmore v. United States, 411 U.S. 389 (1973), the Supreme Court held that "Congress [is] not required to provide an Art. III court for the trial of criminal cases arising under its laws applicable only within the District of
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Columbia." Id. at 410.8 Hollingsworth was tried for the violation of a federal criminal statute that applies only "within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States." 18 U.S.C. § 113(a)(5). Thus under Palmore, Hollingsworth has no constitutional right to trial before an Art. III court. See Jenkins, 734 F.2d at 1326 (holding that "the requirements of Article III are consistent with the establishment by Congress of non-Article III courts to enforce federal criminal laws" in Clause 17 federal enclaves).
Hollingsworth also argues that, even if Congress could refer his trial to an Article I court under Clause 17, the magistrate judge who heard his case is not a member of such a court. But Congress "exercise[s] within [federal enclaves] all legislative powers that the legislature of a state might exercise within the State, and may vest and distribute the judicial authority in and among courts and magistrates, and regulate judicial proceedings before them, as it may think fit, so long as it does not contravene any provision of the constitution of the United States." Palmore, 411 U.S. at 397 (quoting Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U.S. 1, 5 (1899)). Hollingsworth fails to cite any constitutional provision that Congress violated when it referred his trial to a federal magistrate judge. Indeed, the particular facts of Hollingsworth's case show that, as applied, Congress has not even entered the constitutional borderlands. Pursuant to Clause 17, Congress could have referred all trials for crimes committed at Belle Chasse to an Article I judge, including felony trials.
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See Palmore, 411 U.S. at 391 (explaining that Palmore was tried and found guilty of a felony in an Article I court). But Congress chose to refer only trials for petty offenses to federal magistrate judges. Moreover, it is not clear that Hollingsworth has a constitutional right to appeal to an Art. III court, yet Congress granted him the right to appeal to not one but two Art. III courts.
We hold that Hollingsworth did not have a right to trial before an Art. III judge, and that his trial, conviction, and sentence before a federal magistrate judge was constitutional. Because we are bound "never to anticipate a question of constitutional law in advance of the necessity of deciding it," United States v. Raines, 362 U.S. 17, 21 (1960), our holding applies only to defendants tried for petty offenses committed on federal enclaves obtained by Congress pursuant to Clause 17.9
In response to the dissent, we begin by noting a historical fact that the dissent passes over. From 1894 until 1948, Congress referred trials for misdemeanors committed on certain federal lands to the federal magistracy.10
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The statutes referring such trials did not require the defendant's consent as a prerequisite to the magistrate's jurisdiction. See statutes cited supra note 10. This fact is relevant for two reasons. First, it shows that the dissent is wrong to claim that the federal magistracy has always been an "adjunct body," "statutorily, historically, and doctrinally" (footnotes omitted). Second, the Supreme Court's non-delegation caselaw requires us to consider historical context and practice when construing the "literal command of Art. III." N. Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U.S. 50, 64 (1982) (plurality opinion); see also NLRB v. Canning, 134 S. Ct. 2550, 2560 (2014) (holding that historical practice is important when courts interpret the Constitution, "even when the nature or longevity of that practice is subject to dispute, and even when that practice began after the founding era"). We have not found evidence that a defendant tried under the statutes referring misdemeanor trials to commissioners ever challenged the constitutionality of
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the delegation. Indeed, in the only case we have identified addressing a commissioner's jurisdiction to hear a misdemeanor case under such a statute, neither the defendant nor the court saw fit to even raise the issue. See Rider v. United States, 149 F. 164, 166-67, 170 (8th Cir. 1906) (vacating defendant's misdemeanor conviction because he was tried before general commissioner, instead of commissioner specifically appointed to hear cases arising on federal land, as envisioned in statute). The fact that these statutes survived unchallenged for more than half a century ought to inform our constitutional analysis.
We also disagree with the dissent on two theoretical issues. First, the dissent insists that this case involves Art. III "federal judicial power" and proceeds as if this distinction carries the day. The Supreme Court once "suggested a rigid distinction between those subjects that could be considered only in Art. III courts and those that could be considered only in legislative courts." Marathon, 458 U.S. at 63 n.14 (plurality opinion). But the Court's "more recent cases clearly recognize that legislative courts may be granted jurisdiction over some cases and controversies to which the Art. III judicial power might also be extended." Id.; see also id. at 113 (White, J., dissenting) (stating that "[t]here is no difference in principle between the work that Congress may assign to an Art. I court and that which the Constitution assigns to Art. III courts"); Palmore, 411 U.S. at 402 (explaining that "the enforcement of federal criminal law" has never "been deemed the exclusive province of federal Art. III courts"). By relying on the outdated notion that federal judicial power can never be assigned to legislative courts, the dissent's reasoning is wrong from the start.
Instead of asking whether this case involves "federal judicial power," the Supreme Court's caselaw makes clear that we should ask a simpler question: whether the case arose in a "geographical area[ ], in which no State operate[s]
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as sovereign." Marathon, 458 U.S. at 64 (plurality opinion). The Constitution and the Supreme Court's caselaw define these areas. They include United States territories, the District of Columbia ("D.C."), Indian territories, and foreign areas over which the United States has jurisdiction to try American citizens by treaty. See id. at 65 & n.16.11 And, as we explained above, the Supreme Court has left no doubt that the geographical exception applies to all Clause 17 federal enclaves, not just D.C. See supra note 8. Because Hollingsworth's crime occurred in a Clause 17 federal enclave, Congress had the power to refer Hollingsworth's trial to a legislative court, regardless of the fact that the magistrate judge exercised federal judicial power that normally resides in the Art. III courts.
Second, the dissent argues that the federal magistracy is an "adjunct body." Of course, the magistrate judge did not act as an adjunct in this case; she exercised full judicial power over Hollingsworth's criminal trial. See Stern v. Marshall, 131 S. Ct. 2594, 2610-11 (2011) (explaining that a court that...
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