United States v. Rios

• Decision Date: 11 April 1956
• Docket Number: Crim. No. 7213.
• Citation: 140 F. Supp. 376
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Alejandro Figueroa RIOS, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico

140 F. Supp. 376

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Alejandro Figueroa RIOS, Defendant.

Crim. No. 7213.

United States District Court D. Puerto Rico, San Juan Division.

April 11, 1956.

Ruben Rodriguez Antongiorgi, U. S. Atty., San Juan, Puerto Rico, for plaintiff.

Rene Benitez, San Juan, Puerto Rico, for defendant.

RUIZ-NAZARIO, District Judge.

The defendant herein was indicted for violation of Title 15, U.S.C.A., § 902(e), which provides as follows: "It shall be unlawful for any person who is under indictment or who has been convicted of a crime of violence or who is a fugitive from justice to ship, transport, or cause to be shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce any firearm or ammunition."

Section 901(2) of said Title defines interstate or foreign commerce, for the purposes of the chapter thus: "The term `interstate or foreign commerce' means commerce between any State, Territory or possession (not including the Canal Zone), or the District of Columbia, and any place outside thereof; or between points within the same State, Territory, or possession (not including the Canal Zone), or the District of Columbia, but through any place outside thereof; or within any Territory or possession or the District of Columbia."

Defendant has moved to dismiss the indictment for failure to state facts sufficient to constitute an offense under the laws of the United States. His contention is that Puerto Rico is no longer a Territory of the United States and that therefore transportation of firearms, after conviction for a crime of violence (aggravated assault and battery in the case at bar), is not covered by Section 902(e) if the transportation be wholly in and within Puerto Rico, now a Commonwealth rather than a Territory or possession as the term is used in Section 901(2).

Counsel have filed elaborate briefs discussing the present status of Puerto Rico. The United States Attorney adopts the position that as Congress has made no irrevocable renunciation of its "Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States", U.S.Const. Art. 4, § 3, cl. 2, Puerto Rico remains a Territory of the United States and enactment of Public Law 600, 81st Congress, 64 Stat. 319, Title 48 U.S.C.A., §§ 731b to 731e, did not by implication exclude transportation of firearms within the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico from the scope of Section 901(2) of Title 15, U.S.C.A.

Defendant's counsel on the other hand assumes the position that in view of the complete internal autonomy now enjoyed by Puerto Rico, reference to a territory or possession in Federal legislation must now be judged in the light of the nature of the subject matter and its relation to an interest of a Federal nature, and that any legislation which rests solely on the territorial power of Congress and not arising from any of the granted powers is now inapplicable to Puerto Rico.

The Congress, in the exercise of its Power, under Art. 4, § 3, cl. 2 of the Constitution, "to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; * * *", has from time to time created body politics for governing the different areas comprised within said constitutional provision, and the forms of government so created have been stamped both by the Congress and by the Courts, with conventional labels, according to the relative powers of government delegated to each, to the point that categories, not defined in the Constitution proper, have been recognized to exist whenever one form of government is compared with another.

Thus, the Congress and the Courts have been placing in the first category areas said to have the "potentialities of statehood" like unto continental areas to which, pursuant to their organic acts and the interpretation thereof by the Supreme Court, the United States Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, fully applies. The areas falling within this first category have been conventionally labelled "incorporated territories". See, e. g. Rassmussen v. United States, 197 U. S. 516, 25 S.Ct. 514, 49 L.Ed. 862; Granville-Smith v. Granville-Smith, 349 U.S. 1, 75 S.Ct. 553, 99 L.Ed. 773.

In the second category they have included such areas "not thought of as future states", to which pursuant to their organic acts and the interpretation thereof by the Supreme Court, "only some essentials, withal undefined, of the Constitution extended". The areas falling within this second category have been conventionally labelled "unincorporated organized territories". See, e. g. Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244, 21 S.Ct. 770, 45 L.Ed. 1088; Balzac v. People of Porto Rico, 258 U.S. 298, 42 S.Ct. 343, 66 L.Ed. 627; Granville-Smith v. Granville-Smith, supra.

Pre-Commonwealth Puerto Rico fell within this second category. See Granville-Smith v. Granville-Smith, supra, 349 U.S. at page 6, 75 S.Ct. at page 556.

A third or rather a sub-category of the second category appears to have arisen as regards such areas which enjoy somewhat limited powers of local government and in which the federal government exercises many local functions which Congress customarily delegates to the local governments of the areas comprised in the first and second categories. The areas falling within this sub-category have been conventionally labelled "possessions" or "insular possessions". See Granville-Smith v. Granville-Smith, supra, 349 U.S. at page 7, 75 S.Ct. at page 556.

This label has been also applied to areas falling within the second category.

The influence of these conventional labels has been such, that even in legislation intended by Congress to be applicable to all areas comprising all the categories above mentioned, these are not designated by the common term "Territory *** belonging to the United States" used in the Constitution, but by the plurality of conventional labels by which they have become known.

And the situation has reached the point where a statute employing the term territory or territories has been claimed not to apply to other areas similarly labelled, although these are as much "Territory *** belonging to the United States" within the territorial clause of the Constitution as the other areas conventionally labelled "incorporated or unincorporated organized territories." So much so that in People of Puerto Rico v. Shell Co., 302 U.S. 253, at pages 257-258, 58 S.Ct. 167, at page 169, 82 L.Ed. 235, the Supreme Court found it necessary to clarify the situation, as follows:

"But it is evident, from a consideration of the pertinent acts of Congress and the decisions of this court with respect to these acts, that whether Puerto Rico comes within a given congressional act applicable in terms to a `territory' depends upon the character and aim of the act. Words generally have different shades of meaning, and are to be construed if reasonably possible to effectuate the intent of the lawmakers; and this meaning in particular instances is to be arrived at not only by a consideration of the words themselves, but by considering, as well, the context, the purposes of the law, and the circumstances under which the words were employed. Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers v. United States, 286 U.S. 427, 433, 52 S. Ct. 607, 608, 76 L.Ed. 1204; Helvering v. Stockholms Enskilda Bank, 293 U.S. 84, 86, 87, 88, 55 S.Ct. 50, 51, 52, 79 L.Ed. 211. Thus, although Puerto Rico is not a territory within the reach of the Sixth and Seventh Amendments and may not be a `territory' within the meaning of the word as used in some statutes, we held in Kopel v. Bingham, 211 U.S. 468, 474, 475, 476, 29 S.Ct. 190, 192, 53 L.Ed. 286, that Puerto Rico was a `territory' within the meaning of section 5278 of the Revised Statutes 18 U.S.C.A. §§ 3182, 3195, which provides for the demand and surrender of fugitive criminals by governors of territories as well as of states." (Emphasis supplied by this Court.)

The above quoted language leaves no doubt that when Congress in a given statute makes reference to territories as a subject for the application of the statute, it does not follow that the statute is necessarily applicable to all the areas which constitute "Territory * * belonging to the United States" within the constitutional provision, or even to all the areas whose labels bear the term "territory" and that its application thereto entirely "depends upon the character and aim of the act" and the "circumstances under which the words were employed" in it. Thus, the statute may apply to areas within the first category and not apply to areas within the second category, or vice-versa, though both use the word "territory" in their respective labels. And this need not only occur at the time of the adoption of the statute, it may happen at any later date while it remains in force. In other words, a statute making reference to territories may be held originally to be applicable to a given area, though at some future date "the character and aim of the act" and "the circumstances under which the words were employed" may be at such odds with the then existing situation at a given area, that it no longer can be held to apply to the latter, irrespective of the conventional label with which it may have continued to be known.

In the portion of the statute under consideration, the Congress has adhered to the labelling practice above mentioned, under which, the terms territory and possession no doubt have a different or more restricted denotation than the term "territory" as used in Art. 4, § 3, cl. 2 of the Constitution.

Congress, by adhering to the use of the aforesaid labels, has intended to refer to "Territories" and "possessions" in the qualified sense ascribed to said terms by the Supreme Court in the cases above cited and, therefore when a designated label appears to be inapplicable to a designated area under the rule laid down by the Supreme Court in People of Puerto Rico v....