Doe v. United States

833 F.3d 192, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 14764, 2016 WL 4245425
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit·Decided August 11, 2016·No. Docket No. 15-1967-cr·Published·Cited by 37 cases

Opinions

LOHIER, Circuit Judge:

In this appeal we address whether a district court has ancillary jurisdiction to expunge all records of a valid conviction. The case arises from Jane Doe’s health care fraud conviction in 2001 after a jury trial in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Gleeson, J.). The District Court sentenced Doe principally to five years’ probation. In 2014, seven years after her term of probation ended, Doe moved to have her record of conviction expunged because her conviction prevented her from getting or keeping a job as a home health aide. Relying on United States v. Schnitzer, 567 F.2d 536 (2d Cir. 1977) and Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, 511 U.S. 375, 114 S.Ct. 1673, 128 L.Ed.2d 391 (1994), the District Court held in a decision [195] and order dated May 21, 2015 that it had ancillary jurisdiction to consider and grant Doe’s motion. It then directed the Government to seal all hard copy records and to delete all electronic records of Doe’s conviction. The Government appeals that decision as well as a related order.

We hold that the District Court lacked jurisdiction to consider Doe’s motion to expunge records of a valid conviction. We therefore VACATE and REMAND with instructions to dismiss Doe’s motion for lack of jurisdiction.

BACKGROUND

To resolve this appeal, we accept as true the following facts taken from the District Court’s opinion and order granting Doe’s expungement motion. See Doe v. United States, 110 F.Supp.3d 448 (E.D.N.Y. 2015).

In 1997 Doe, a single mother with no prior criminal history, worked as a home health aide but struggled to pay her rent. Id. at 449-50. That year Doe decided to join an automobile insurance fraud scheme' in which she posed as a passenger in a staged car accident. As part of the scheme she feigned injury and recovered $2,500 from a civil claim related to the accident. Id. at 449-50. In 2001 a jury convicted Doe of “knowingly and willfully” participating in a “scheme ... to defraud any health care benefit program” in violation of 18 U.S.C. §1347. Id. at 450; 18 U.S.C. § 1347(a)(1). On March 25, 2002, the District Court imposed a sentence of five years’ probation and ten months’ home detention, as well as a restitution order of $46,701. Doe, 110 F.Supp.3d at 450.

By 2008 Doe had completed her term of probation. But she could not keep a job in the health care field, the only field in which she sought work. Doe was sometimes hired as a home health worker by employers who did not initially ask whether she had been convicted of a crime. But she was fired when the employers eventually conducted a background check that revealed her conviction. Id. at 451-52.

On October 30, 2014, Doe filed , a pro se motion asking the District Court to expunge her conviction “because of the undue hardship it has created for her in getting — and especially keeping — jobs.” Id. at 448-49. Doe had by all accounts led an exemplary life since her conviction thirteen years earlier. Id. at 455.

Relying first on Schnitzer, 567 F.2d at 539, the District Court determined that it had ancillary jurisdiction to consider Doe’s motion. Doe, 110 F.Supp.3d at 454 & n.16; see Schnitzer, 567 F.2d at 538-39 (holding that “[a] court, sitting in a criminal prosecution, has ancillary jurisdiction to issue protective orders regarding dissemination of arrest records,” and that “expungement ... usually is granted only in extreme circumstances” (quotation marks omitted)). In doing so, the District Court acknowledged that the Supreme Court in Kokko-nen had “limited ancillary jurisdiction of collateral proceedings to instances where it is necessary ‘(1) to permit disposition by a single court of claims that are, in varying respects and degrees, factually interdependent,’ and ‘(2) to enable a court to function successfully, that is, to manage its proceedings, vindicate its authority, and effectuate its decrees.’ ” 110 F.Supp.3d at 454 n.16 (quoting Kokkonen, 511 U.S. at 379-80, 114 S.Ct. 1673). But the District Court determined that Doe’s motion satisfied' both of these categories. Id.

First, the District Court explained, the motion’s “sole focus is the record of the conviction that occurred in this case, and the exercise of discretion it calls for is informed by, inter alia, the facts underlying the conviction and sentence and the extensive factual record created while Doe was under this Court’s supervision for five [196] years.” Id. Second, the court pointed out, “few things could be more essential to ‘the conduct of federal-court business’ than the appropriateness of expunging the public records that business creates.” Id. (quoting Kokkonen, 511 U.S. at 381, 114 S.Ct. 1673).

The District Court also cited three reasons why the consequences of Doe’s conviction were “extreme” enough to warrant expungement of her criminal record. First, Doe’s offense of conviction “is distant in time and nature from [her] present life,” and “[s]he has not even been re-arrested, let alone convicted, in all th[e] years” since her conviction. Id. at 455 (quotation marks omitted). Second, Doe’s “criminal record has had a dramatic adverse impact on her ability to work,” as “[s]he has been terminated from half a dozen [home health aide] jobs because of the record of her conviction” — a difficulty that was “compounded” by the fact that Doe is over 50 years old and black. Id.; see also id. at 449, 452. Third, “[t]here was no specter at the time that she had used her training as a home health aide to help commit or cover up her crime,” and “[t]here is no specter now that she poses a heightened risk to prospective employers in the health care field.” Id. at 457.

For these reasons, the District Court granted Doe’s motion and ordered “that the government’s arrest and conviction records, and any other documents relating to this case, be placed in a separate storage facility, and that any electronic copies of these records or documents and references to them be deleted from the government’s databases, electronic filing systems, and public record.”1 Id. at 458.

This appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

“Federal courts ... are courts of limited jurisdiction.” Wynn v. AC Rochester, 273 F.3d 153, 157 (2d Cir. 2001). “Even where the parties are satisfied to present their disputes to the federal courts, the parties cannot confer subject matter jurisdiction where the Constitution and Congress have not.” Id. We conclude that the District Court did not have jurisdiction over Doe’s motion pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3231 because Doe’s conviction was valid and the underlying criminal case had long since concluded.

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Doe v. United States, 833 F.3d 192, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 14764, 2016 WL 4245425 (2d Cir. 2016).

833 F.3d 192 (Doe v. United States) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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