United States v. Lee Thomas Rivers , 588 F. App'x 905 ( 2014 )

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 14-10143
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 6:13-cr-00126-GAP-TBS-1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
LEE THOMAS RIVERS,
a.k.a. Lee Thomas Rivers, Jr.,
a.k.a. Lee Thomas River, Jr.,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Florida
________________________
(October 15, 2014)
Before TJOFLAT, JORDAN, and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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Defendant Lee Thomas Rivers is a sex offender subject to the registration
requirements of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (“SORNA”).
He appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss the charges against
him for failing to register and update his registration as required by SORNA, in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2250(a). Rivers argues that SORNA is unconstitutional
because it exceeds the scope of Congress’s commerce authority in light of the
Supreme Court’s decision in National Federation of Independent Buiness. v.
Sebelius, 567 U.S. ___, 132 S. Ct. 2566 (2012) (“NFIB”), and because it violates
the Ex Post Facto Clause and the non-delegation doctrine. After careful review,
we affirm.
I.
The essential factual history is not disputed. Rivers was convicted in South
Carolina in 1991 of criminal sexual conduct with a minor and sentenced to 16
years’ incarceration. In December 2008, Rivers signed a sex-offender registration
form in South Carolina, acknowledging that if he moved to another state, he must
timely notify local authorities in South Carolina, register with the new state, and
abide by the new state’s reporting requirements. Rivers signed a similar form in
South Carolina in August 2009.
In 2010, Rivers moved to Florida without updating his sex-offender
registration. He was arrested in Florida in October 2010 on a warrant out of South
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Carolina for failure to register as a sex offender and failure to appear on those
charges. Florida authorities compelled Rivers to register as a sex offender in
Florida at that time. The form that Rivers signed in Florida advised him that he
had up to 48 hours to report any changes of address to local authorities and that he
was required to update his registration twice a year for the rest of his life.
In December 2010, Rivers returned to South Carolina, pled guilty to failing
to register as a sex offender, and was sentenced to thirty days in jail. Rivers signed
another sex-offender registration form in South Carolina in March 2012. This
form included additional language stating that if Rivers moved to another state
without updating his registration, he would be subject to federal prosecution under
18 U.S.C. § 2250.
At some point in 2012, Rivers moved from South Carolina to Ocoee,
Florida. From Ocoee he moved to Winter Garden, Florida. He did not register in
Florida or update his registration in South Carolina to reflect the moves. Rivers
was arrested in April 2013 in Windermere, Florida, where he had been working.
After his arrest, Rivers admitted to knowing that he was required to register but
stated that he did not do so because he did not want his girlfriend to find out that he
was a sex offender.
Rivers was charged in a federal indictment filed in the United States District
Court for the Middle District of Florida with traveling in interstate commerce to
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Florida from South Carolina and failing to keep his registration current under
SORNA, in violation of § 2250. He moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing that
the charges were improper because the Supreme Court’s decision in NFIB
effectively overruled this Court’s decision in United States v. Ambert, 561 F.3d
1202 (11th Cir. 2009), which had upheld SORNA’s constitutionality against
various challenges, including that SORNA exceeded the scope of Congress’s
commerce authority. Rivers also raised challenges to SORNA under the Ex Post
Facto Clause, U.S. Const. art. I, § 9, cl. 3, and the non-delegation doctrine. The
district court denied the motion to dismiss.
Soon thereafter, Rivers sought to enter a conditional plea of guilty that
would allow him to preserve the right to appeal the denial of his motion to dismiss.
The government would not consent, citing office policy, so Rivers proceeded to
trial before a jury and conceded his guilt. At the close of evidence, the district
court denied Rivers’s renewed motion to dismiss the indictment. The jury found
Rivers guilty. The district court imposed a sentence of imprisonment of one year
and one day to be followed by a ten-year term of supervised release. This appeal
followed.
II.
We generally review the denial of a motion to dismiss an indictment for an
abuse of discretion. United States v. Madera, 528 F.3d 852, 854 (11th Cir. 2008).
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Where the district court’s determination rests on its resolution of questions of law,
though, as it does here, we review those questions of law de novo. Id.III.
SORNA contains two primary statutory sections applicable to this case.
Under 42 U.S.C. § 16913, a sex offender is required to register, and to keep
registration current, in each jurisdiction where the offender resides, works, or is a
student, and he must appear in person and provide the information required for the
sex-offender registry within three business days of a change of name, residence,
employment, or student status. 42 U.S.C. § 16913(a), (c). Section 2250 imposes
criminal liability on two categories of persons who knowingly fail to adhere to
SORNA’s registration requirements: any person who is a sex offender due to a
federal conviction, § 2250(a)(2)(A); and any other person required to register
under SORNA who travels in interstate or foreign commerce, § 2250(a)(2)(B).
Carr v. United States, 560 U.S. 438, 451, 130 S. Ct. 2229, 2238 (2010).
Congress delegated authority to the Attorney General to determine whether
SORNA and its registration requirements apply retroactively to offenders
convicted before SORNA’s enactment. 42 U.S.C. § 16913(d); Madera, 528 F.3d
at 857-58 (explaining that “Congress vested the Attorney General with sole
discretion to determine SORNA’s retroactivity”). The Attorney General has
determined that SORNA’s requirements “apply to all sex offenders, including sex
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offenders convicted of the offense for which registration is required prior to the
enactment of that Act.” 28 C.F.R. § 72.3.
A. Commerce Clause
Rivers acknowledges our previous holding in Ambert that § 2250 is a valid
exercise of congressional power under the Commerce Clause, U.S. Const., Art. I,
§ 8. See 561 F.3d at 1210. Therefore, Rivers’s challenge is foreclosed unless
Ambert is no longer controlling, because we are bound by the holding of a prior
opinion unless the holding is overruled or undermined to the point of abrogation by
the Supreme Court or by this Court sitting en banc. See United States v. Kaley,
579 F.3d 1246, 1255 (11th Cir. 2009). Rivers argues that Ambert was undermined
by the Supreme Court in NFIB. We disagree.
In Ambert, we began by recounting Congress’s three categories of power
under the Commerce Clause, as delineated by the Supreme Court in United States
v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 115 S. Ct. 1624 (1995):
(1) “Congress may regulate the use of channels of
interstate commerce”; (2) “Congress is empowered to
regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate
commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce,
even though the threat may come only from intrastate
activities”; and (3) “Congress’ commerce authority
includes the power to regulate those activities having a
substantial relation to interstate commerce, i.e., those
activities that substantially affect interstate commerce.”
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Ambert, 561 F.3d at 1210 (quoting Lopez, 514 U.S. at 558-59, 115 S. Ct. at 1629-
30).
We then explained that § 2250 is constitutional “because it regulates both
the use of channels of interstate commerce and the instrumentalities of interstate
commerce.” Id. at 1210. We observed that § 2250 regulates the channels of
interstate commerce because part of the commission of the offense for state sex
offenders like Rivers requires “travel in interstate commerce.” Id. at 1211. We
further noted that “when a sex offender travels from one state to another, he is an
instrumentality of interstate commerce.” Id. By regulating these persons under
SORNA, we explained, Congress did no more than employ its “lawful commerce
power to prohibit the use of channels or instrumentalities of commerce for harmful
purposes.” Id.
We further held in Ambert that § 16913 of SORNA is “reasonably adapted to
the attainment of a legitimate end under the commerce clause.” Id. at 1212. We
found it “clear that SORNA was designed to create an interstate system to
counteract the danger posed by sex offenders who slip through the cracks or
exploit a weak state registration system by traveling or moving to another state
without registering therein.” The registration requirements under § 16913, we
held, are “necessary to track those offenders who move from jurisdiction to
jurisdiction.” Id.
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Describing NFIB as “a particularly difficult opinion to decipher,” Rivers
nevertheless asserts that the decision has called into doubt the holding of Ambert.
NFIB is difficult because the discussion of the Commerce Clause in Part III-A of
the primary opinion, authored by Chief Justice Roberts, was not joined by any
other Justice and arguably was not necessary to the Court’s decision to uphold the
constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. See NFIB, 567
U.S. at ___, 132 S. Ct. at 2585-93. Therefore, the Chief Justice’s discussion of the
Commerce Clause may not be binding, but we need decide not that question at this
time. See United States v. Robbins, 729 F.3d 131, 135 (2d Cir. 2013) (declining to
address this question in a challenge to SORNA). Even assuming that it is binding,
Rivers’s arguments on appeal are unavailing.
Combining Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion in tandem with the jointly
authored dissent, Rivers derives five relevant propositions from NFIB that he says
limit Congress’s Commerce Clause authority in important respects. See NFIB, 567
U.S. at ___, 132 S. Ct. at 2642-50 (Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito, JJ.,
dissenting). First, Rivers asserts, Congress cannot regulate inactivity or compel
individuals to engage in activity. Second, he continues, Congress cannot regulate
the current conduct of individuals based on predictions about their future conduct.
Third, Rivers suggests, the Necessary and Proper Clause, U.S. Const. art. 1, § 8, cl.
18, is not an independent source of authority, but can be used only to supplement
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an enumerated power. Fourth, Rivers contends, Congress has no authority “to
regulate individuals as such; it may only regulate activities.” Finally, Rivers
concludes, a regulation cannot be upheld where accepting its constitutionality
would lead to “limitless regulatory authority.”
According to Rivers, SORNA is unconstitutional because it compels
individuals to engage in activity: registration as a sex offender. Moreover, Rivers
asserts, that activity is purely intrastate and non-economic in nature, and it is not
connected to a comprehensive regulatory scheme of an interstate market, as in
Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 9, 125 S. Ct. 2195, 2201 (2005) (upholding
regulation of purely intrastate activities that are part of an economic class of
activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce). The broader
purpose of SORNA, Rivers states, is similarly non-economic in nature.
Initially, we note that this case, like Ambert, concerns a defendant whose
conviction under SORNA involves “travel[] in interstate commerce,”
§ 2250(a)(2)(B). We therefore do not reach the question of whether NFIB has
anything to say about a defendant who is a sex offender by reason of a federal
conviction, § 2250(a)(2)(A). Proceeding with that limitation in mind, and
assuming without deciding the truth of Rivers’s assertions regarding what NFIB
held with respect to Congress’s commerce authority, we hold that we are bound by
Ambert’s holding notwithstanding NFIB.
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The Supreme Court’s decision in NFIB does not undermine, or even appear
to say anything about, the bases of Ambert’s holding. Ambert held that § 2250(a)
was constitutional under the first two Lopez categories because it regulated the
channels and the instrumentalities of interstate commerce. Id. at 1210-11. NFIB,
on the other hand, addressed Lopez’s third category of permissible regulation under
the Commerce Clause—the regulation of activity that has a substantial relation to
or effect on interstate commerce. See NFIB, 567 U.S. at __, 132 S. Ct. at 2585-90.
The Court’s decision in Raich was similarly concerned with this third category of
regulation. See Raich, 545 U.S. at 16-17, 125 S. Ct. at 2205. Because NFIB did
not cast doubt on Congress’s ability to regulate the channels or instrumentalities of
interstate commerce, it is not “clearly on point” and does not “directly conflict”
with our decision in Ambert. See Kaley, 579 F.3d at 1255.
Furthermore, SORNA “compels” registration from only those individuals
who have been previously convicted of a sexual offense. See United States v.
Cabrera-Gutierrez, 756 F.3d 1125, 1132 (9th Cir. 2014). In that sense, these
individuals have “opted in” to the group of persons whose activities are regulated
by SORNA, unlike the uninsured in NFIB. Robbins, 729 F.3d at 136. Nor was
Rivers’s conviction in this case based solely on his inactivity. Rather, the
registration requirement that Rivers knowingly failed to meet was triggered by
specific activity: travel across state lines. See 18 U.S.C. § 2250(a)(2)(B). Indeed,
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interstate travel is the focal point of SORNA’s regulations. See Ambert, 561 F.3d
at 1212 (“[A]n examination of § 16913 and § 2250 makes the interstate focus
abundantly clear.”). “As applied to [Rivers], then, §§ 16913 and 2250(a) not only
regulate activity, but activity that directly employs the channels of interstate
commerce.” Robbins, 729 F.3d at 136; see also Ambert, 561 F.3d at 1211-12.
In short, we held in Ambert that SORNA was a constitutionally valid
regulation of the channels and instrumentalities of interstate commerce. Ambert,
561 F.3d at 1211-12. Nothing in the Supreme Court’s decision in NFIB
undermines the reasoning behind that settled precedent. Accordingly, at least as
applied to defendants like Rivers, we remain bound by Ambert’s holding that
SORNA is a valid exercise of Congress’s commerce authority.
B. Ex Post Facto Clause and Non-Delegation Doctrine
Rivers’s arguments under the Ex Post Facto Clause and the non-delegation
doctrine, which he raises solely to preserve the issues for further review, are
squarely foreclosed by this Court’s precedent, as he acknowledges. See Ambert,
561 F.3d at 1207-08, 1212-14. We therefore do not address them further.
IV.
In sum, we reaffirm our holding in Ambert that SORNA is a valid exercise
of Congress’s commerce authority as applied to state sex offenders like Rivers who
travel in interstate commerce. Therefore, the district court did not abuse its
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discretion in denying Rivers’s motion to dismiss his indictment, and we affirm
Rivers’s conviction and sentence.
AFFIRMED.
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