Tag Archives: subject-matter jurisdiction

Subject-Matter Jurisdiction Ain’t What You Think – Update for February 14, 2023

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

SUBJECT-MATTER JURISDICTION IS EASY-PEASY

If there is any post-conviction issue that is as often raised as it is without merit, it’s got to be subject-matter jurisdiction.

In second-grade civics, we 7-year-olds learned that federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. As my sainted teacher, Minta Newmeyer, explained to my attentive classmates and me, this means that those courts – creatures of statute – may only hear cases on subjects approved by Congress. Want to take your neighbor to federal court because her magnolia tree drops a mess on your yard every fall?  Tough. Trespass and nuisance are perfectly good common-law claims, but Congress has not authorized federal courts to hear such quotidian bellyaches. For you to hail your pesky neighbor into federal court, you have to raise a cause of action that a federal court is allowed to hear.

easypeasy230214The concept is easy-peasy.  Yet, I see a lot of inmate-written post-conviction arguments made that the federal district court that convicted the prisoner somehow lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to hear the underlying criminal case for one wacky reason or another.

Preparing to win a federal conviction may be as as complex as a nine-course meal, but determining subject-matter jurisdiction for a federal criminal action is as easy as boiling water. Has the defendant been accused of violating a federal criminal statute? Is the case filed in federal district court? If the answer to both questions is ‘yes’, the court has subject-matter jurisdiction.

Prisoners screw this simple concept up all the time. But they aren’t the only ones not to get it. Sometimes the court itself can be fooled, as the 5th Circuit reminded us last week.

Daisy Bleuler and Paulo Murta, both Swiss citizens working in wealth-management firms, are charged with running an international bribery scheme in which U.S. businesses laundered bribes to Venezuelan officials through their Swiss firms. Daisy has never been to the USA. Paulo came over once to Miami but not to the Southern District of Texas (where the indictment was handed up).

Eight defendants were indicted for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Two of them – Daisy and Paulo – moved to dismiss on the grounds the court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction. The district court agreed, finding that “the FCPA and money-laundering statute did not apply extraterritorially,” that is, could not be applied to non-citizens’ actions that did not take place in the USA.

Because there was no “direct or undisputed evidence” Daisy had an agency relationship in the United States, the district court found that it lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate the FCPA case. The district judge said the money-laundering counts failed because Daisy did not commit any portion of the offenses “while in the United States”; and no one alleged that Paulo was in the USA “at the time the alleged transactions occurred…”

smj230214The 5th Circuit made short work of what appears to have been a complex district court holding. “In the criminal context,” the Circuit held, “subject matter jurisdiction is straightforward.” Noting that 18 USC § 3231 provides that “the district courts of the United States shall have original jurisdiction… of all offenses against the laws of the United States,” the 5th said, “To invoke that grant of subject matter jurisdiction, an indictment need only charge a defendant with an offense against the United States in language similar to that used by the relevant statute. That is the extent of the jurisdictional analysis: ‘a federal criminal case is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the district court if the indictment charges that the defendant committed a crime described in Title 18 or in one of the other statutes defining federal crimes.”

Whether a statute reaches extraterritorial acts is a defense to a criminal charge, the Circuit said, but it is not a challenge to the district court’s subject-matter jurisdiction.

United States v. Bleuler, Case Nos 21-20658, 2023 U.S.App. LEXIS 3097 (5th Cir. Feb 8, 2023)

– Thomas L. Root

7th Circuit Finds the Jurisdictional ‘Force’ Is With This One – Update for February 3, 2023

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We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

COURT DOESN’T LACK JURISDICTION JUST BECAUSE YOU MIGHT LOSE

Wolfgang Von Vader had some run-ins that resulted in a 2000 conviction in the Western District of Wisconsin for distributing methamphetamine (a Guidelines “career offender” 270-month sentence) and a 2012 federal conviction in Kansas for possessing heroin in prison (a 120-month consecutive sentence).

jurisdiction180410Wolf applied for 18 USC § 3582(c)(1)(A) compassionate release in both Kansas and Wisconsin. Both courts shot him down. The Kansas decision is currently on appeal in the 10th Circuit. In the Wisconsin case, the government argued that the court lacked jurisdiction to consider Wolf‘s compassionate release motion because he had already served all of his 2000 Wisconsin sentence, and is now on his consecutive 2012 Kansas sentence. Section 3582(c) does not authorize release from an expired sentence, the government contended, which makes Wolf’s Wisconsin compassionate release motion moot.

The district court agreed, and dismissed Wolf’s motion for lack of jurisdiction.

Last week, the 7th Circuit disagreed, reversing Wolf’s dismissal. Maybe a retroactive reduction is unauthorized by statute, the Circuit said, “but we do not see how this moots [Von Vader’s] request. If § 3582(c) does not supply authority for the relief Von Vader wants, then he loses on the merits, not for lack of jurisdiction.”

vader230203“The judge in Wisconsin could order the Bureau of Prisons to treat the Wisconsin sentence as if it had expired earlier and to reduce the time remaining on the Kansas sentence accordingly,” the 7th ruled. “Or the court in Wisconsin could make an adjustment in the length of supervised release, on the Wisconsin sentence, tht will follow the conclusion of the Kansas sentence. As long as relief is possible in principle, the fact that a given request may fail on statutory grounds does not defeat the existence of an Article III case or controversy.”

United States v. Von Vader, Case No 22-1798, 2023 U.S.App. LEXIS 1750 (7th Cir., January 24, 2023)

– Thomas L. Root

If They’ve Got You, They’ve Got Jurisdiction – Update for January 6, 2020

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LIKE AN EARTH GIRL, JURISDICTION IS EASY

earthgirls200106We may as well begin 2020 with a cautionary tale. As I have previously written, arguing that federal courts lack subject-matter jurisdiction over a criminal case is a dead-bang loser. Yet, there is a small but persistent cohort of inmates – many of whom inhabit the prison law library – who espouse whack-a-doodle ideas about the law and, for a fee payable in items from the institution commissary – are way too willing to share them with fellow prisoners.

The 2nd Circuit underscored that last week in an opinion that expressed both patience and exasperation with a pro se whack-a-doodle appellate filing by a federal inmate.

First, a word about jurisdiction. Federal courts (except for the Supreme Court) were created by statutes passed by Congress. They are what are known as courts of limited jurisdiction. That is to say that a federal court only has the power to decide an issue that Congress has authorized it to decide. This is what is known as subject-matter jurisdiction. Your neighbor’s kid broke your window with a baseball? Try suing in federal court, and see what happens. Your case will be tossed.

froglevel200106Proceeding hand in hand with subject-matter jurisdiction is personal jurisdiction. A federal court has to have authority over the person of the defendant. If a diminutive elderly woman rams your new Bentley at the Rose Bowl, you cannot return home to Frog Level, North Carolina, and sue her in the Federal District Court for the Western District of North Carolina. There may be subject-matter jurisdiction (diversity of citizenship and sufficient damages to the Bentley, which we won’t get into), but the Little Old Lady from Pasadena has no contacts with the Western District of North Carolina. There’s no personal jurisdiction.

In the federal criminal law sphere, subject-matter jurisdiction – as I have said before – is easy. If the grand jury has indicted you for violating a federal criminal statute, a federal district court has subject-matter jurisdiction.  But, as defendant Raymond McLaughlin asked the Second Circuit, how about personal jurisdiction?

Ray’s house was in foreclosure. Rather than looking in the mirror to find someone to blame (if you don’t make your house payment, the bank forecloses and takes your house back), Ray decided it was all the state court judge’s fault. He filed documents with the IRS showing he had paid the state court judge $300,000. Of course, he had not. If he had had that kind of money, he would have made his house payments. But Ray claimed he had greased the judge’s palm, intending to get the IRS to go after the judge for failing to report income and thus to make His Honor’s life a living hell.

The scheme fell apart, and Ray was convicted of making a false statement to a government agency in violation of 18 USC § 1001.

sovereigncitizen161125Before his conviction, Ray filed a truckload of pro se motions arguing, among other things, that the district court lacked personal jurisdiction over him. Ray had bought into the “sovereign citizen” movement, which in essence believes the federal government is illegitimate and therefore that its laws are not binding. As Ray’s District Court judge observed, the “sovereign citizens” seek to “clog the wheels of justice” by raising frivolous arguments that the courts and the Constitution lack authority.

“Sovereign citizens” can, however, make a claim that hardly anyone else can. Their claims have a perfect record in federal court: none has ever won.

Neither did Ray. The 2nd Circuit explained that whenever a district court has subject-matter jurisdiction over the criminal offenses charged, it has personal jurisdiction over the defendants charged in the indictment and present before the court to answer those charges. A federal district has subject-matter jurisdiction over any indictment charging that a federal law has been broken. Therefore, it has personal jurisdiction over the defendant, no matter whether he or she walks in voluntarily or is dragged in by federal agents.

As the Circuit put it, a defendant need not “actually participate in the proceedings in order for the court to have personal jurisdiction over the defendant.”

juris170501It is pretty simple, the 2nd said. The indictment charged Ray, and Ray was present before the district court. “Accordingly, the District Court had personal jurisdiction over McLaughlin and the judgment is valid.”

Note: personal jurisdiction should not be confused with venue. The Sixth Amendment gives a defendant “the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.” In other words, Ray could not have been put on trial in the District of Hawaii – no matter how much nicer the weather – for a crime that allegedly occurred in Connecticut. But “venue” is a topic for another day.

United States v. McLaughlin, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 38626 (2nd Cir. Dec. 30, 2019)

– Thomas L. Root

Lack of Subject-Matter Jurisdiction is Largely a Myth – Update for October 28, 2019

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SUBJECT MATTER JURISDICTION AIN’T WHAT YOU THINK

drytoast191028Over 25 plus years of post-conviction work, I can’t count the number of inmate-written post-conviction motions I have seen claiming that a district court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over their cases. What I can count is the number of times the claim has worked. That would be zero.

Subject-matter jurisdiction is a pretty dry topic, but it is a basic concept that should be understood by your basic high school government class student. Other than the Supreme Court, which was established in the Constitution, all federal courts are creatures of statute. That is to say, those lower courts exist only because Congress passed a law saying they exist. Congress could eradicate everything from the courts of appeal down to federal magistrate judges (who aren’t really judges, but that is a matter for another day) simply by passing a law doing so. Of course, the President would have to sign, but given the fits federal judges have given Mr. Trump in enjoining many of his prized initiatives, it’s a safe bet he’d find his pen real fast.

Because lower federal courts are creatures of statute, Congress is allowed to dictate what issues they may hear and not hear. That’s called subject-matter jurisdiction. This much-abused concept arises often in civil suits, and occasionally in post-conviction matters. But as a matter of a criminal conviction, subject-matter jurisdiction is easy and straightforward. The question boils down to this: Is the defendant accused of violating a federal criminal statute? If, yes, the district court has subject-matter jurisdiction under 18 USC § 3231. If no, the district court may not.

Most defendants raising subject-matter jurisdiction claim some defect is jurisdictional when it isn’t. The First Circuit reminded Daniel Carpenter of that last week. Dan had been sentenced and filed a notice of appeal. While the appeal was pending, the district court issued a forfeiture order. Dan argued that because he had filed his notice of appeal, the district court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to issue any further orders in his case.

buttercup191028The 1st said Dan’s “use of the term ‘subject matter jurisdiction’ is a misnomer here.” While he may not have known it, Dan was really relying on what is known as the “appellate divestiture” rule. That rule holds that the filing of a notice of appeal “divests the district court of its control over those aspects of the case involved in the appeal,” but it does “not divest the district court of all authority.”

The appellate divestiture rule is not jurisdictional, the Circuit said. Rather, it “is rooted in concerns of judicial economy, crafted by courts to avoid the confusion and inefficiency that would inevitably result if two courts at the same time handled the same issues in the same case. Application of the divestiture rule is not mandatory and efficiency concerns are central to determining whether we should apply it here.”

In this case, the district court said at sentencing that a forfeiture proceeding would be held later. Thus, the Circuit said, “forfeiture was a certainty; the only question was the amount.” Because there would be no point to a remand, inasmuch as the forfeiture order had issued, the divestiture rule did not block the forfeiture order.

United States v. Carpenter, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 31113 (1st Cir. Oct 18, 2019)

– Thomas L. Root

10th Circuit Adds Fuel to the 3582(c)(2) Jurisdiction Fire – Update for April 10, 2018

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CIRCUIT SPLIT ON 3582(c)(2) JURISDICTIONAL QUESTION DEEPENS

Marconia Green is a guy who is determined to get sentence-reduction credit because of the USSC’s 2-level changes in the drug Guidelines. He has filed numerous times, but run up against a district judge not included to cut him a break. On his fourth 18 USC 3582(c)(2) filing, the district court ruled it lacked jurisdiction to hear a successive sentence-reduction motion.

success180410When the U.S. Sentencing Commission changes the Sentencing Guidelines in such a way as to reduce the sentencing range a defendant would be assigned for certain conduct, that change does not necessarily benefit people who have already been sentenced. Instead, it’s prospective only, unless the Commission makes a separate determination that the change should be retroactive to people already doing time.

If a Sentencing Guideline change is made retroactive, a prisoner must file a motion under 18 USC 3582(c)(2) in order to obtain the benefit of it. If the prisoner is eligible because the Guideline change lowers his or her advisory sentencing range, the judge who originally imposed the sentence considers a wealth of information about the offense and the prisoner’s progress since being locked up. The judge may grant a sentence reduction to the extent of the Sentencing Guideline change, may deny it, or may decide to only grant a portion of the benefit.

Retroactivity is not always a sure thing. The Commission has passed on it for some changes, primarily because so many inmates would have been affected that the courts would be swamped with 3582(c)(2) motions. But many changes, primarily reductions in drug sentencing levels since 2007, have been made retroactive. About 30,000 inmates took advantage of the last change in 2014 to seek and obtain sentence reductions.

A few who tried and failed have tried, tried again. Marconia Green is one. As we noted, on Marconia’s fourth try, the court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to hear more than one 3582(c)(2) per inmate per Guidelines change.

jurisdiction180410Jurisdiction, of course, is a big deal, because it cannot be waived and it does not depend on the merit of the claim. And lack of it is pretty final. There could be big changes in an inmate’s history since the last filing, some prior state convictions might have gone away, the prisoner might have amassed a lot more programming, he might have suffered an illness that means he is unlikely to pose a threat to the community… But if the court lacks jurisdiction to hear a second 3582(c)(2) after the first one is denied, none of that could matter.

Last week, the 10th Circuit joined five other Circuits in holding that 3582(c)(2) does not contain a jurisdictional bar to successive motions under the same guidelines amendment. “Such a numerical restriction on the court’s jurisdiction is wholly absent from the text of the statute,” the 10th said. For the bar to be jurisdictional, the statute must “plainly show that Congress imbued a procedural bar with jurisdictional consequences.” Absent a clear statement from Congress that any potential bar on the number of motions a defendant may file per amendment is jurisdictional, 3582(c)(2) does not divest a district court of jurisdiction to consider a second motion to modify a sentence under the same amendment.”

As of now, six circuits say that the bar to successive 3582(c)(2) motion filings is jurisdictional. Six say it is not. With a 6-6 split in the circuits, this issue could easily find its way to the Supreme Court.

United States v. Green, Case No. 17-6001 (10th Cir., April 6, 2018)

– Thomas L. Root

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District Court’s Well-Meaning Meddling With a Prior Sentence Gets Swatted Down – Update for September 26, 2017

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WHAT’S DONE IS DONE

done170926If there is an enduring myth among inmates seeking to get convictions and sentences set aside, it is the canard that questions about the court’s jurisdiction can be raised at any time. We can’t count the number of times we have tried to explain that “at any time” does not mean that a defendant can waltz into court a decade after the fact to claim that the court never should have heard the criminal case to begin with.

To be sure, a court has a continuing obligation to satisfy itself that it has subject-matter jurisdiction, but as Jorge Mercado-Flores discovered, that obligation only lasts as long as the case goes on. There always comes a time when a criminal judgment is final, and – to paraphrase the Supreme Court – finality is a virtue.

Jorge, who is 28, was charged in Puerto Rico with a rather unpleasant offense after getting a little frisky at the beach with his 14-year old girlfriend. The government did not think Jorge’s transgression merited the 10-year mandatory minimum sentence the offense as charged required, so it proposed a plea deal in which he would plead to a different statute which carried no mandatory minimum sentence.

This was the catch. The statute Jorge was charged with criminalized “the transportation of a minor within a United States ‘commonwealth, territory or possession’.” The statute he pled to under the plea deal criminalized the transportation of an individual “in interstate or foreign commerce, or in any Territory or Possession of the United States.”

viva170926As the French say, “viva la difference!” The parties did not catch the problem, but at sentencing the district court voiced its concern. Puerto Rico is not a territory or possession, but rather is a commonwealth, in fact, one of only two commonwealths in the United States. The statute Jorge was charged under mentioned territories, possessions and commonwealths. The statute he pled to omitted “commonwealths” altogether.

The district court tried to cut the baby in half. It said it would sentence Jorge, but reserve judgment on whether it had subject-matter jurisdiction to sentence him. So it did, giving him 57 months. About 24 days later, the court – acting sua sponte – ruled that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over the statute Jorge pled to, and dismissed the whole she-bang.

Great news for Jorge, right? Wrong. The government appealed, demanding that the district court’s decision on jurisdiction be vacated. The government said that if the appeal failed, it would reindict him under the old statute. That would expose Jorge to a minimum 120-month sentence. Jorge then filed a responsive brief with the appeals court, supporting the government’s demand that the district court’s jurisdiction decision be vacated.

Last Friday, the 1st Circuit made everyone happy, throwing out the district court dismissal and reinstating the 57-month sentence. The Circuit made it clear:

We begin with bedrock. Subject to only a handful of narrowly circumscribed exceptions, a district court has no jurisdiction to vacate, alter, or revise a sentence previously imposed… When — as in this case — a judgment of conviction is entered upon imposition of a sentence, that sentence is a final judgment and, therefore, may only be modified by the sentencing court in certain limited circumstances. Because a district court (apart from collateral proceedings such as habeas corpus or coram nobis) has no inherent power to modify a sentence after it has been imposed, those limited circumstances “stem[] solely from . . . positive law.

The appellate court reviewed the limited circumstances – a habeas corpus proceeding, a government motion to reduce sentence for substantial assistance, a motion under 18 USC 3582(c)(2) when the Sentencing Commission has retroactively lowered the guidelines. None of the limited circumstances applied here.

jailbait170926The Circuit complained that “the district court did not identify the source of its perceived authority to vacate the defendant’s sentence. After examining all the potential sources, we conclude that, in the circumstances of this case, no provision of positive law empowers a district court to vacate a sentence, sua sponte, more than three weeks after imposing it.”

You see, “final” is “final.” The judiciary has “historic respect for the finality of the judgment of a committing court,” which “would become a distant memory” if district courts could recall their sentences whenever they wanted to, or whenever a defendant wanted to argue about jurisdiction. The 1st said, “if the criminal justice system is to function appropriately, the imposition of a sentence must carry with it an ‘expectation of finality and tranquility’ for the defendant, the government, and the public.”

The error was a simple one. The district court already had imposed a sentence, more than three weeks had elapsed, and the defendant had not sought either to withdraw his guilty plea or to vacate the imposed sentence. Given those facts, the appellate court said, “the district court was not at liberty, sua sponte, to annul the sentence. Having accepted the defendant’s plea, conducted a full sentencing hearing, and imposed a sentence, the court lost any jurisdiction to change its mind.”

Even if it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to begin with?

Yup. Even though.

United States v. Mercado-Flores, Case No. 15-1859 (1st Cir., Sept. 22, 2017)

– Thomas L. Root

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