United States v. Kaluza
| Decision Date | 27 January 2014 |
| Docket Number | CRIMINAL ACTION NO. 12-265 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. ROBERT KALUZA AND DONALD VIDRINE |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Louisiana |
Before the Court is defendants' Joint Motion to Dismiss Counts 1-23 of the Superseding Indictment filed on September 26, 2013. (Rec. Doc. 104). Having reviewed the pleadings, memoranda, and relevant law, the Court hereby DENIES the motions as follows.
The charges in this matter arise out of the actions of two employees of British Petroleum ("BP") who were on board the Deepwater Horizon drilling vessel during the explosion on April 20, 2010, which killed eleven members of the vessel's crew. On November 14, 2012, a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Louisiana returned a Superseding Indictment ("the Indictment") charging each of the employee-defendants, Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine ("defendants"), with eleven counts of Involuntary Manslaughter under 18 U.S.C. § 1112 ("Section 1112") (Counts 1-11), eleven counts of Ship Officers' Manslaughter under 18 U.S.C. § 1115 ("Section 1115") (Counts 12-22), and one count alleging a Clean Water Act violation under 33 U.S.C. §§ 1319(c)(1)(A) and 1321(b)(3) (Count 23). (Superseding Indictment ¶¶ 25-70). On November 28, 2012, both defendants plead not guilty as to all counts. On December 10, 2013, this Court dismissed Counts 12-22 under Section 1115. (See Rec. Doc. 118).
In their instant motion, the defendants seek to dismiss Counts 1-23 of the Indictment under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(b)(2), asserting that the underlying criminal statutes are unconstitutionally vague as applied "because they lack a clear 'standard of care' that the defendants allegedly violated" and thus fail to charge an offense. (Rec. Doc. 104, at 1). As previously noted, the remaining counts against the defendants are charged under Section 1112 (Counts 1-15) and the Clean Water Act (Count 23). The government, on the other hand, suggests that the statutes at issue in this matter employ "well-established" and unambiguous standards of negligence. (Rec. Doc. 111, at 1). Thus, the government argues that because the standard of negligence is not ambiguous or vague, the criminal statutes as applied to the defendants in this case are not void for vagueness. (Rec. Doc. 111, at 1).
Rule 12(b)(2) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provides that "[a] party may raise by pretrial motion any defense, objection, or request that the court can determine without a trial of the general issue." The court is required to take the indictment's allegations as true when determining whether the indictment fails to state an offense. United States v. Crow, 164 F.3d 229, 234 (5th Cir. 199); United States v. Rainey, 946 F.Supp.2d 518, 526 (E.D. La. May 20, 2013). In addition, in considering whether to grant the motion to dismiss the indictment based on its sufficiency for failure to state an offense, "the propriety of granting a motion to dismiss the indictment under Rule 12 ' is by-and-large contingent upon whether the infirmity in the prosecution is essentially one of law or involves determinations of fact.'" United States v. Rainey, 946 F.Supp.2d at 526 (citing United States v. Flores, 404 F.3d 320, 324 (5th Cir.2005)). In the Fifth Circuit, questions of law are considered appropriate for such pretrial motions. Id. Inthe instant matter, whether the criminal statutes are unconstitutionally vague as applied to the defendants is a question of law. United States v. Rudzavice, 586 F.3d 310, 315 (5th Cir. 2009) (); see Rainey, 946 F.Supp.2d at 546; United States v. Humble 714 F.Supp. 794 (E.D.La. June 15, 1989). Additionally, unlike some other circuits, the Fifth Circuit allows district courts to look beyond the face of the indictment and make "preliminary findings of fact necessary to decide the questions of law presented by pre-trial motions so long as the court's findings on the motion do not invade the province of the ultimate finder of fact." Flores, 404 F.3d at 324 n.6 (citation and internal quotations omitted); see Rainey, 946 F.Supp.2d at 546.
Neither party contests what the government must prove under either statute.1 As to the manslaughter charges, Section 1112 provides:
18 U.S.C. § 1112(a) (emphasis added). Courts have interpreted charges of involuntary manslaughter under Section 1112 to require proof that the defendant committed the following acts:
(1) act[ed] with gross negligence, meaning a wanton or reckless disregard for human life, and (2) [had] knowledge that his or her conduct was a threat to the life of another or knowledge of such circumstances as couldreasonably have enabled the defendant to foresee the peril to which his or her act might subject another.
United States v. Fesler, 781 F.2d 384, 393 (5th Cir. 1986); see also United States v. Schmidt, 626 F.2d 616, 617 (8th Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 904, 101 S.Ct. 278, 66 L.Ed.2d 136; United States v. Wood, 207 F.3d 1222, 1236 (10th Cir. 2000). The Fifth Circuit has interpreted "gross negligence" in the context of Section 1112 to mean "a wanton or reckless disregard for human life." Fesler, 781 F.2d at 393; United States v. Dominguez-Ochoa, 386 F.3d 639, 645 (5th Cir. 2004). For charges under the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1319(c)(1)(A) and § 1321(b)(3), however, courts only require proof of ordinary negligence. United States v. Pruett, 681 F.3d 232, 241-42 (5th Cir. 2012). In Pruett, the Fifth Circuit stated that "negligence is not an ambiguous term, and is understood to mean '[t]he failure to exercise the standard of care that a reasonably prudent person would have exercised in a similar situation.'" 681 F.3d 232, 242 (5th Cir. 2012) (citation omitted). Thus, the Court must consider whether gross negligence and negligence as applied to the defendants results in impermissible and unconstitutional vagueness as to the conduct proscribed by the statutes.
"The Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause protects against criminal convictions based on impermissibly vague statutes." United States v. McRae, 702 F.3d 806, 836-37 (5th Cir. 2012) cert. denied, 133 S. Ct. 2037, 185 L. Ed. 2d 887 (U.S. 2013). Generally, the void for vagueness doctrine provides that the statute may be vague based on two independent grounds: (1) where persons of ordinary intelligence have no fair notice or reasonable opportunity to understand what conduct is proscribed, and (2) where the statute prohibits conduct in such a manner that it encourages arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. See Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 357, 103 S.Ct. 1855, 75 L.Ed. 903 (1983); United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 304, 128 S.Ct. 1830, 1845, 170 L.Ed.2d 650 (2008); Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 92 S.Ct.2294, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972). The first ground is founded upon the notion that "[v]ague laws may trap the innocent by not providing fair warning." Grayned, 408 U.S. at 108-09; see Thibodeau v. Portuondo, 486 F.3d 61, 65 (2007). Even if the law provides fair notice, however, it may be impermissibly vague if it does not provide sufficiently clear standards for enforcement. See Chicago v. Morales, 527 U.S. 41, 52, 119 S.Ct. 1849, 144 L.Ed.2d 67 (1999). The second ground—of which the Supreme Court has declared is the "more important aspect of the vagueness doctrine"—requires that laws must establish "minimal guidelines to govern law enforcement." Koldender, 461 U.S. at 359. To protect against arbitrary enforcement, the laws must establish "explicit standards" that avoid "resolution based on an ad hoc and subjective basis," or those resolutions which are accompanied by the "attendant dangers of arbitrary and discriminatory application." Grayned, 408 U.S. at 109.
As the Supreme Court has instructed, "[t]hese standards should not, of course, be mechanically applied." Vill. of Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc., 455 U.S. 489, 498-99, 102 S. Ct. 1186, 1193, 71 L. Ed. 2d 362 (1982); see Roark & Hardee LP v. City of Austin, 522 F.3d 533, 551-52 (5th Cir. 2008). The degree of vagueness tolerated depends partly on the nature of the law: economic regulation or civil enactments receive more tolerance than criminal penalties because the "consequences of imprecision are qualitatively less severe." Hoffman, 455 U.S. at 498-99. Yet a scienter requirement in a criminal statute may mitigate vagueness, particularly as to the fair notice requirement. Id. Indeed, "even a criminal statute need not achieve 'meticulous specificity' at the expense of 'flexibility and reasonable breadth.'" Rubin v. Garvin, 544 F.3d 461, 467 (2d Cir. 2008) (quoting Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 110, 92 S.Ct. 2294, 33 L.Ed.2d 222 (1972)). As the Supreme Court has explained:
What renders a statute vague is not the possibility that it will sometimes be difficult to determine whether the incriminating factit establishes has been proved; but rather the indeterminacy of precisely what that fact is. Thus, we have struck down statutes that tied criminal culpability to whether the defendant's conduct was 'annoying' or 'indecent'—wholly subjective judgments without statutory definitions, narrowing context, or settled legal meanings.
United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 306, 128 S.Ct. 1830, 1846, 170 L. Ed. 2d 650 (2008) (citations omitted) (emphasis added).
Challenges as to vagueness are of two types: they may be facial, seeking invalidation of the statute in its entirety, or as applied, seeking invalidation only as...
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