US v. Clark
| Decision Date | 04 February 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 4:93-CR-130-Y.,4:93-CR-130-Y. |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America v. Reuben F. CLARK. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas |
Paul E. Gartner, Jr., Fort Worth, TX, for plaintiff.
Timothy J. Henry, Fort Worth, TX, for defendant.
Pending before the Court is defendant REUBEN F. CLARK's ("Clark") motion to dismiss, filed December 7, 1993. After careful consideration of said motion, response, and the applicable law, the Court is of the opinion that the motion should be DENIED.
On November 4, 1993, Clark was indicted for conspiracy to violate 18 U.S.C. §§ 2312 & 2313, and for 23 violations of those statutes. Section 2312 makes it a crime to transport "in interstate or foreign commerce a motor vehicle ... knowing the same to have been stolen...." Section 2313 makes it a crime to receive, possess, conceal, store, barter, sell or dispose of any motor vehicle which has crossed a state or United States boundary after being stolen, knowing the vehicle to have been stolen. Clark was indicted along with two other defendants, who have since plead guilty.
When considering Defendant's motion to dismiss, the Court accepts as true the allegations contained in the indictment. 1 Charles A. Wright, Federal Practice & Procedure § 194 (1982). The indictment in this case charges that Clark and others transported numerous vehicles, which they knew to be stolen, from Texas to Oklahoma and disposed of them in that state. Thus, accepting those allegations as true, the government has presented a valid case against the defendant. Nevertheless, Defendant contends that even when accepting the government's allegations as true, the indictment should be dismissed based upon three grounds: (1) federal jurisdiction was "manufactured" by government agents, (2) the actions of the government constitute outrageous conduct in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, (3) the indictment violates the principle of federalism set forth in the Tenth Amendment.
Defendant argues that he "finds himself in federal court solely at the bidding of the law enforcement's undercover operation which required the defendants to deliver the stolen vehicles ... just across the Texas/Oklahoma border near Thackerville, Oklahoma." (Def.'s Mot. to Dismiss at 2.) Thus, Defendant contends, because no federal crime would have taken place but for the government's request that the vehicles be delivered out of state, federal jurisdiction does not exist. Courts that have considered similar arguments have generally rejected them.
The seminal case considering a claim of artificially created jurisdiction is United States v. Archer, 486 F.2d 670 (2d Cir.1973). The case involved a complex scheme by government agents to ferret out corruption in New York City's justice system. The Court found that federal jurisdiction had been improperly manufactured where federal agents feigned an arrest and tried to make payments to local officials to avoid conviction. One agent, after realizing the investigation had discovered only state crimes, crossed state lines to telephone one of the subjects, thereby using a facility in interstate commerce and creating a nexus for federal jurisdiction. The Archer case is often cited by defendants to support the proposition that the government cannot "manufacture" federal jurisdiction. However, courts considering such claims virtually always distinguish Archer. In fact, as noted by the Fifth Circuit, the Archer court on reconsideration emphasized that the decision "went no further than to hold that when the federal element in a prosecution under the Travel Act is furnished solely by undercover agents, a stricter standard is applicable than when the interstate or foreign activities are those of the defendants themselves...." Id. at 685-86 (cited in United States v. Perrin, 580 F.2d 730, 736 (5th Cir.1978), aff'd on other grounds, 444 U.S. 37, 100 S.Ct. 311, 62 L.Ed.2d 199 (1979)).
Courts considering claims of manufactured federal jurisdiction have generally focused on two factors: (1) as suggested by the above Archer quote, whether it was the defendants themselves or government agents who committed the act that made the crime federal, which is invariably an act with an interstate element, and (2) whether the act providing the interstate nexus, which is presumably directed by the government to some extent, has significance in the case other than providing federal jurisdiction.
In Archer, the government asserted federal jurisdiction based upon defendants' receipt of interstate telephone calls.1 As one court has noted, "the defendant in Archer neither agreed to do nor did anything with interstate consequences; the federal officials did it all." United States v. Podolsky, 625 F.Supp. 188, 194 (N.D.Ill.1985), aff'd, 798 F.2d 177 (7th Cir.1986).
Courts considering cases similar to the one at bar, where the defendants themselves carried out the acts with interstate significance, have consistently held that federal jurisdiction is properly invoked. See id.; United States v. Peters, 952 F.2d 960 (7th Cir.) (discussed infra at 5-6), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S.Ct. 1277, 117 L.Ed.2d 503 (1992); United States v. Lau Tung Lam, 714 F.2d 209 (2d Cir.) (discussed infra at 6-7), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 942, 104 S.Ct. 359, 78 L.Ed.2d 322 (1983); Perrin, 580 F.2d at 736 (); United States v. Marcello, 537 F.Supp. 1364, 1374-75 (E.D.La.1982) (), aff'd, 703 F.2d 805 (5th Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 935, 104 S.Ct. 341, 78 L.Ed.2d 309 (1983). In fact, several courts have rejected the manufactured jurisdiction argument even where government agents have themselves performed the interstate act, provided the defendant encouraged or was aware of the interstate element. See United States v. Smith, 749 F.2d 1568, 1569 (11th Cir.) (), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1137, 105 S.Ct. 2680, 86 L.Ed.2d 698 (1985); United States v. Bagnariol, 665 F.2d 877, 899 (9th Cir.1981) (), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 962, 102 S.Ct. 2040, 72 L.Ed.2d 487 (1982); United States v. Barker, 594 F.2d 709, 710 (8th Cir.1979) (); Perrin, 580 F.2d at 736 (), citing United States v. Hedge, 462 F.2d 220, 223 (5th Cir.1972).
A recent Seventh Circuit case is similar to the one at bar. In United States v. Peters, 952 F.2d 960 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 112 S.Ct. 1277, 117 L.Ed.2d 503 (1992), the defendant contended that "the government improperly manufactured federal jurisdiction over him by inducing him to drive the stolen truck across the state line from Illinois into Indiana and that the case against him should have been dismissed." See 952 F.2d at 961. The Court found that the defendant as in Archer. See id. at 963 (internal quotes omitted). Moreover, the defendant "showed no reluctance in joining a conspiracy that would result in his stolen truck being transported out of Illinois; when asked, he did not hesitate to transport it out of Illinois himself." Id. Finally, the court found that "the fact that the agents "steered" the defendant to commit a crime within federal jurisdiction rather than hand him over to local police does not render federal jurisdiction inappropriate." See id. (citation and internal quote omitted). Like the defendant in Peters, Clark is alleged to have "freely and voluntarily" transported vehicles across state lines and to have disposed of them there. He also did not hesitate, when asked, to transport the vehicles across state lines. As a result, this Court finds, as the Peters court did, that the fact that government agents "steered" the defendant to commit a crime within federal jurisdiction does not render such jurisdiction inappropriate.
The holding of a Second Circuit opinion also prevents any application of an Archer defense to the instant case. In United States v. Lau Tung Lam, 714 F.2d 209 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 942, 104 S.Ct. 359, 78 L.Ed.2d 322 (1983), which was decided by the same court that decided Archer ten years earlier, the defendant asserted that although he had been selling heroin in Europe, it was this country's Drug Enforcement Agency that lured him to sell in New York. Accordingly, he claimed, "no crime would have existed in this country but for the conduct of the Government's agents who themselves created the federal nexus which permitted prosecution." Id. at 210 (citing appellant's brief). The court found that "the Government has an entirely legitimate interest in identifying and apprehending European drug dealers willing to bring narcotics to this country for sale." Furthermore, "Lau himself committed the substantial jurisdictional act of bringing drugs into the United States." Id. at 211. This Lau Tung Lam analysis applies with equal force to our case: the government has a legitimate interest in identifying and apprehending car thieves and fences willing to transport cars across state lines; and the defendants are charged with the substantial...
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U.S. v. Clark
...adverse determination on his motion to dismiss the indictment. The opinion of the district court is reported at United States v. Clark, 844 F.Supp. 1143 (N.D.Tex.1994). We The issue, as defined by Clark, presented for review by this court is whether the government artificially manufactured ......