United States v. Samia
| Decision Date | 13 March 2017 |
| Docket Number | No. S9 13 CR 521-LTS,S9 13 CR 521-LTS |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. ADAM SAMIA and CARL DAVID STILLWELL, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
On December 13, 2016, this Court issued an Opinion and Order granting, in part, Defendants' motion to dismiss the S9 Superseding Indictment (the "Indictment"). (Docket entry no. 376 (the "December Opinion").) The Government now seeks reconsideration of the aspect of the December Opinion that granted Defendants' motion to dismiss Counts One and Two of the Indictment, which charged a conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and murder-for-hire, respectively, in violation of Section 1958(a) of Title 18 of the United States Code. U.S. v. Samia, 2016 WL 7223410, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 13, 2016) (Swain, J.). The Court has considered the submissions of both parties carefully and, for the reasons that follow, grants the Government's motion for reconsideration and, on reconsideration, reinstates Counts One and Two of the Indictment.
The Court assumes the parties' familiarity with the relevant facts of this case, which are summarized in the December Opinion, and this memorandum opinion therefore sets forth only the factual and procedural history relevant to the disposition of the instant motion.
Counts One and Two of the Indictment charged both Defendants with violations of 18 U.S.C. section 1958(a), which requires, in relevant part, that Defendants have used a facility of interstate or foreign commerce "with intent that a murder be committed in violation of the laws of any State or the United States." The Indictment alleges that the Defendants traveled in foreign commerce in connection with the murder of Catherine Lee, a non-U.S. national, in the Phillippines. See Samia, 2016 WL 7223410, at *1.
On August 19, 2016, Defendant Stillwell moved, inter alia, to dismiss Counts One and Two of the Indictment. (Docket entry no. 345.) In his memorandum of law in support of the motion, Stillwell argued that Section 1958 should not be read to have extraterritorial effect (i.e, application in connection with a murder that allegedly took place outside of the United States). In the course of making that argument, which the motion characterized as a "jurisdictional" challenge, Stillwell noted that "[d]espite Section 1958's reference to a murder in violation of any of the laws of the United States, the Government has identified no other homicide statute to close this jurisdictional loophole." (Docket entry no. 346, Mem. of Law in Support of Motion to Dismiss, p. 13 n. 8.) Defendant Samia later joined the motion. In response, the Government asserted that the Indictment sufficiently alleged violations of Section 1958 because it alleged that Defendants possessed "the intent to commit a murder in violation of Section 956," which the Government described as "the object murder offense." (Docket entry no. 349, Mem. of Law in Opposition, p. 15.)
At oral argument on the motion to dismiss, the Court asked the Government to clarify its position on this issue:
(Docket entry no. 371, Transcript, at 24:15-21, 26:8-23, 28:7-13, 29:11-15.)
In the December Opinion, the Court concluded that the Government did not sufficiently show that the mens rea requirement of Section 1958 could be met under the circumstances alleged in the Indictment because it did not show that Defendants intended to commit a murder that would have violated federal or state law. Samia, 2016 WL 7223410, at *4. The Court rejected the Government's argument that an intended violation of Section 956 was an intended "murder" for purposes of Section 1958, holding that "Section 956 addresses conspiracy to murder, not murder itself." Id. Accordingly, "[a]bsent a Federal or State law criminalizing the murder of a non-United States national abroad under the circumstances alleged in the Indictment, the Government cannot establish intent to commit a murder in violation of Federal or State law, which is a necessary component of the mens rea element of Section 1958." Id. The Court therefore dismissed Counts One and Two of the Indictment.
"The standard for granting a motion for reconsideration is 'strict, and reconsideration will generally be denied unless the moving party can point to controlling decisions or data that the court overlooked.'" United States v. Gomez, No. 08 CR 429-DLC, 2016 WL 2939163, at *2 (quoting Analytical Surveys, Inc. v. Tonga Partners, L.P., 684 F.3d 36, 52 (2d Cir.2012) (citation omitted)). A motion for reconsideration may also be granted "when the defendant identifies an intervening change of controlling law, the availability of new evidence, or the need to correct a clear error or prevent manifest injustice." Kolel Beth Yechiel Mechil of Tartikov, Inc. v. YLL Irrevocable Trust, 729 F.3d 99, 104 (2d Cir. 2013) (citation omitted) (discussing a motion under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure). A motion for reconsideration is "not a vehicle for relitigating old issues, presenting the case under new theories, securing a rehearing on the merits, or otherwise taking a second bite at the apple." Analytical Surveys, 684 F.3d at 52 (citation omitted). The decision to grant or deny the motion for reconsideration is within "the sound discretion of the district court." Aczel v. Labonia, 584 F.3d 52, 61 (2d Cir. 2009) (citation omitted).
Because "federal crimes are solely creatures of statute, a federal indictment can be challenged on the ground that it fails to allege a crime within the terms of the applicable statute." United States v. Aleynikov, 676 F.3d 71, 75-76 (2d Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). In evaluating a motion to dismiss, the Court "accept[s] as true all of the allegations of the indictment." United States v. Goldberg, 756 F.2d 949, 950 (2d Cir. 1985).
The Government's motion for reconsideration repeatedly characterizes the December Opinion as having held sua sponte that Section 956 was not an appropriate basis to satisfy the mens rea requirement of Section 1958, and argues that reconsideration is therefore appropriate to permit the parties to fully brief this question. (See Mem. in Opposition, p. 3.) As the record detailed above makes plain, this issue was addressed, albeit briefly, in the submissions of both parties relating to the original motion to dismiss. More significantly, the Court specifically questioned the Government about this issue, which was the subject of an extended colloquy at oral argument on the motion. During that colloquy, the Government relied repeatedly and exclusivelyon Section 956 to demonstrate that Section 1958's mens rea requirement could be satisfied under the circumstances alleged in the Indictment, and did not at any time argue that any other statute was pertinent. Nor did the Government request an opportunity to supplement its briefing after taking this position at oral argument. Accordingly, the Government has not identified any controlling law or data that was presented to and overlooked by the Court, any change in controlling law, the availability of new evidence, or clear error warranting reconsideration. Although the instant motion is plainly an attempt to present a new theory of the Indictment based on a legal argument that was fully available to the Government in connection with the prior motion practice, the Court recognizes a substantial public interest in ensuring that the Government may pursue prosecutions based upon indictments that are legally sufficient, and therefore concludes that reconsideration is appropriate in this case to prevent manifest injustice.
In its motion for reconsideration, the Government advances the theory that Section 1958's mens rea requirement may be satisfied here by a consideration of intent to violate a different statute: 18 U.S.C. section 924(j)(1), which provides that "[a] person who, in the course of a violation of subsection (c) [of Section 924], causes the death of a person through the use of a firearm,...
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