United States v. Young
| Decision Date | 26 February 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 19-4149, No. 19-4222,19-4149 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff – Appellee, v. Michael James YOUNG, Jr., a/k/a Unc, Defendant – Appellant. United States of America, Plaintiff –Appellee, v. Vance Edward Volious, Jr., a/k/a Dank, a/k/a Black, Defendant – Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
ARGUED: Jonathan McKey Milling, MILLING LAW FIRM, LLC, Columbia, South Carolina; Aimee Zmroczek, A.J.Z. LAW FIRM, LLC, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellants. Brook Bowers Andrews, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Sandra V. Moser, MILLING LAW FIRM, LLC, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellant Michael James Young, Jr. A. Lance Crick, Acting United States Attorney, Greenville, South Carolina, Kathleen Michelle Stoughton, Assistant United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Columbia, South Carolina, for Appellee.
Before DIAZ, THACKER, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Diaz wrote the opinion, in which Judge Harris and Judge Thacker joined.
Michael James Young, Jr. wanted his ex-wife dead. While serving a prison sentence for an unsuccessful first attempt on her life, Young concocted a plot for several friends on the outside, including Vance Edward Volious, Jr., to mail her a bomb and finish the job. There was but one (big) hitch; the bombmaker he contacted to design the bomb was an undercover FBI agent, and the bomb his friends tried to send was a dud by design. Young and Volious were indicted, a jury convicted them on several counts, and they appealed. Foremost among the questions we must now answer is whether an inert bomb is a nonmailable item under federal law.
While Young was in prison for attempting to kill his ex-wife (and killing his ex-father-in-law), he used a contraband cell phone to orchestrate a drug-dealing conspiracy. Young would contact a supplier, purchase the drugs, and arrange shipment to houses where Volious and Vincent Meredith (another friend on the outside) lived. Young would then arrange for another friend, frequently Tyrell Fears, to pick up the drugs and distribute them.
In February 2017, Young used the contraband cell phone to access the dark web and contact someone he believed to be a Russian bombmaker. After a few months of negotiations, Young purchased what he thought was a mail bomb and arranged for the bombmaker to send the device unarmed to Meredith's house and separately send a prepaid shipping label to Volious's house. Young asked that the shipping label bear his ex-wife's address and asked that both packages contain instructions for arming the device.
What Young didn't know was that his dark web contact was an undercover FBI agent. The FBI built an inert device that ostensibly matched what Young asked for. It contained small amounts of explosives, but by design it couldn't explode. The FBI then sent the shipping label to Volious, per Young's request, and had an undercover postal inspector hand-deliver the inert device to Meredith's address.
After Volious received the label and delivered it to Fears, Fears went to Meredith's house, followed the instructions for arming the device, and placed the shipping label on the package. The FBI watched as Fears placed the device between two mail receptacles, where postal workers normally would have picked it up and placed it into the mail had the FBI not intercepted it first.
The government charged Young and Volious with the following four counts: (1) a criminal conspiracy with several objectives; (2) aiding and abetting the transportation of an explosive in interstate commerce to kill an individual; (3) aiding and abetting the mailing of a non-mailable item with intent to kill; and (4) aiding and abetting the carrying of an explosive during the commission of a felony. A jury convicted Young and Volious on each count, and the court sentenced each to lengthy prison terms.
This appeal followed.
Young and Volious make five challenges to their convictions, each with its own standard of review. The pair makes its first two arguments together, but Volious brings the final three alone. We discuss each in turn.
Young and Volious's primary argument is a two-part challenge to their convictions for aiding and abetting the mailing of a nonmailable item under 18 U.S.C. § 1716(j)(2). They first contend that the package Fears placed in the mail doesn't qualify as a nonmailable item under federal law.1 Next, they argue that the record evidence is insufficient to support their convictions for mailing a nonmailable item.
The first part of Young and Volious's argument raises a question of statutory interpretation that we consider de novo. See Stone v. Instrumentation Lab'y Co. , 591 F.3d 239, 242–43 (4th Cir. 2009). The relevant statute provides that:
Whoever knowingly deposits for mailing or delivery, or knowingly causes to be delivered by mail, ... anything declared nonmailable by this section , whether or not transmitted in accordance with the rules and regulations authorized to be prescribed by the Postal Service, with intent to kill or injure another, or injure the mails or other property, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
18 U.S.C. § 1716(j)(2) (emphasis added). The statute also describes which items qualify as nonmailable:
All kinds of poison, and all articles and compositions containing poison, and all poisonous animals, insects, reptiles, and all explosives , hazardous materials, inflammable materials, infernal machines, and mechanical, chemical, or other devices or compositions which may ignite or explode , and all disease germs or scabs, and all other natural or artificial articles, compositions, or material which may kill or injure another, or injure the mails or other property ....
18 U.S.C. § 1716(a) (emphases added).
The government elected at trial to prove only that the device was an "explosive," Appellee's Br. at 21, and chose not to prove that it was an "other device[ ] or composition[ ] which may ignite or explode." 18 U.S.C. § 1716(a). The evidence at trial showed that the inert bomb contained high explosives. Young and Volious nonetheless argue that the package didn't contain an "explosive" within the meaning of § 1716(a) because the FBI designed the bomb not to explode. Neither § 1716's language nor the sparse case law on the subject support their view.
We begin with the text. Navy Fed. Credit Union v. LTD Fin. Servs., LP , 972 F.3d 344, 356 (4th Cir. 2020) . Since § 1716 doesn't define "explosive," we must give the word its "ordinary meaning." Taniguchi v. Kan Pac. Saipan, Ltd. , 566 U.S. 560, 566, 132 S.Ct. 1997, 182 L.Ed.2d 903 (2012). Dictionaries define "explosive," when used as a noun, to mean an "explosive substance," Explosive , MERRIAM-WEBSTER , https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/explosive (last visited Feb. 22, 2021), or "[a]n explosive substance, object, or device," Explosive , OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY (3d ed. 2016), https://www-oed-com.nwulib.nwu.ac.za/view/Entry/66677?redirectedFrom=explosive#eid (last visited Feb. 22, 2021).
In this context, we must interpret the meaning of "all explosives" to exclude explosive "objects" or "devices" because § 1716(a) lists "other devices or compositions which may ignite or explode" as a category of nonmailable items separate from "all explosives." Reading "all explosives" to encompass "devices or compositions which may ignite or explode" would render the latter phrase superfluous, which we're loath to do. See United States v. Simms , 914 F.3d 229, 241 (4th Cir. 2019), cert. denied , ––– U.S. ––––, 140 S. Ct. 304, 205 L.Ed.2d 196 (2019). Indeed, the "canon against surplusage" is at its "strongest" in cases like this one, where one party's interpretation "would render superfluous another part of the same statutory scheme." Marx v. Gen. Revenue Corp. , 568 U.S. 371, 386, 133 S.Ct. 1166, 185 L.Ed.2d 242 (2013). In such cases, we favor "competing interpretation[s]" that give "effect to every clause and word of a statute." Id. at 385, 133 S.Ct. 1166.
The government's interpretation does just that. The government explains that we should understand the term "all explosives" in this context to refer only to explosive substances, not finished devices. Not only does that reading avoid superfluity, but it's also consonant with Congress's use of other terms in the statute. See United States v. Serafini , 826 F.3d 146, 149 (4th Cir. 2016) ().
For example, § 1716(a) prohibits individuals from mailing "[a]ll kinds of poison" and "all articles containing poison." It also bans people from mailing "inflammable materials" and "devices or compositions which may ignite." 18 U.S.C. § 1716(a). In both cases, Congress used separate language to enact separate bans on mailing (1) a dangerous substance or material (poison or inflammable materials) and (2) objects incorporating that substance or material (all articles containing poison or devices or compositions which may ignite).
That pattern should hold true for explosives too. By banning "all explosives" as well as "other devices or compositions which may ... explode," Congress intended to enact separate bans on mailing (1) explosive substances or materials and (2) devices or compositions incorporating those substances or materials.
Young and Volious assert that § 1716(a) doesn't apply to explosives mailed in such small quantities, or packaged in such a manner, that they couldn't possibly do any harm.2 They argue that the placement of the word "explosives" next to "hazardous materials, inflammable...
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