In Re Antrobus

519 F.3d 1123, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 7634, 2008 WL 732110
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedMarch 14, 2008
Docket08-4002
StatusPublished
Cited by66 cases

This text of 519 F.3d 1123 (In Re Antrobus) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re Antrobus, 519 F.3d 1123, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 7634, 2008 WL 732110 (10th Cir. 2008).

Opinions

ORDER

This is an original proceeding in the nature of mandamus under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act (CVRA), 18 U.S.C. § 3771(d)(3). Sue and Ken Antrobus, the parents of Vanessa Quinn, request that Ms. Quinn be recognized as a victim of Mackenzie Glade Hunter’s crime of transferring a handgun to a juvenile in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(x)(1). Mr. Hunter is scheduled to be sentenced on Monday, January 14, 2008.

[1124]*1124I

On February 12, 2007, Sulejman Talovic murdered five people, including Ms. Quinn, and injured four others at the Trolley Square Shopping Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. One of the guns Talovic used in his rampage was a handgun that he had purchased from Mr. Hunter in the summer of 2006, when Talovic was a “juvenile” as defined in § 922(x). Talovic was killed on the scene.

Mr. Hunter pleaded guilty to two charges. Only one count, that of transferring a handgun to a juvenile, is relevant to this action. After the plea hearing, the Antrobuses sought to have Ms. Quinn declared a victim of Mr. Hunter’s crime so that they, on her behalf, could assert certain rights provided by the CVRA. See 18 U.S.C. § 3771(a)(4) (establishing “[t]he right to be reasonably heard” at the sentencing); id. § 3771(d)(6) (establishing “[t]he right to full and timely restitution as provided in law”). The district court denied the motion. United States v. Hunter, No. 2:07CR307DAK, 2008 WL 53125 (D.Utah Jan. 3, 2008). In doing so, it proceeded on the basis that the handgun sold by Mr. Hunter killed Ms. Quinn, id. at *1, though Mr. Hunter asserts before us that this fact is not discernible from the record of this case. The district court also indicated that other allegations were unsupported, particularly whether Talovic remarked to Mr. Hunter or in Mr. Hunter’s hearing that he intended to commit a bank robbery, but stated that its ruling would not change even assuming such facts. Id. at *4.

As permitted by the CVRA, 18 U.S.C. § 3771(d)(3), the Antrobuses filed a petition for a writ of mandamus seeking review of the district court’s decision. Pursuant to this court’s order, Mr. Hunter filed a response.

II

Standard of Review

The Supreme Court has made it clear that mandamus is a “drastic” remedy that is “to be invoked only in extraordinary situations.” Allied Chem. Corp. v. Daiflon, Inc., 449 U.S. 33, 34, 101 S.Ct. 188, 66 L.Ed.2d 193 (1980) (per curiam). “[T]he writ of mandamus has traditionally been used in the federal courts only to confine an inferior court to a lawful exercise of its prescribed jurisdiction or to compel it to exercise its authority when it is its duty to do so.” Id. at 35 (quotations omitted). Petitioners must show that their right to the writ is “clear and indisputable.” Id. (quotations omitted).

The Antrobuses argue that, even though the CVRA provides for mandamus review, this court should apply those standards that would apply on normal appellate review. See In re W.R. Huff Asset Mgmt. Co., LLC, 409 F.3d 555, 562-63 (2d Cir. 2005); Kenna v. U.S. Dist. Ct., 435 F.3d 1011, 1017 (9th Cir.2006). We respectfully disagree, however, with the decisions of our sister circuit courts.

Congress could have drafted the CVRA to provide for “immediate appellate review” or “interlocutory appellate review,” something it has done many times. Instead, it authorized and made use of the term “mandamus.”

[Wjhere Congress borrows terms of art in which are accumulated the legal tradition and meaning of centuries of practice, it presumably knows and adopts the cluster of ideas that were attached to each borrowed word in the body of learning from which it was taken and the meaning its use will convey to the judicial mind unless otherwise instructed.

Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 263, 72 S.Ct. 240, 96 L.Ed. 288 (1952). [1125]*1125Mandamus is the subject of longstanding judicial precedent. “We assume that Congress knows the law and legislates in light of federal court precedent.” Bd. of County Comm’rs v. U.S. E.E.O.C., 405 F.3d 840, 845 (10th Cir.2005). Applying the plain language of the statute, we review this CYRA matter under traditional mandamus standards.

Analysis

The CVRA defines a “crime victim” as “a person directly and proximately harmed as a result of the commission of a Federal offense or an offense in the District of Columbia.” 18 U.S.C. § 3771(e). While acknowledging that Ms. Quinn undeniably was a crime victim, the district court held that she was not a victim of the particular crime to which Mr. Hunter pleaded guilty because Mr. Hunter’s offense and Talovic’s rampage were “too factually and temporally attenuated.” Hunter, 2008 WL 53125, at *4. Following the rationale of United States v. Sharp, 463 F.Supp.2d 556 (E.D.Va.2006), the district court determined that Talovic’s actions were an “independent, intervening cause” of Ms. Quinn’s death. Id. at *5.

This is a difficult case, but we cannot say that the district court was clearly wrong in its conclusion. The only court that has decided an analogous case under the CVRA held that the movant was not a “crime victim” under that statute. See Sharp, 463 F.Supp.2d 556. Based on its factual finding that Mr. Hunter was unaware of Talovic’s intentions for the firearm,1 to find for the Antrobuses we would have to determine that selling a gun to a minor is the proximate cause of any resulting injury to third persons. This area of the law, however, is not well-developed and is evolving. While authority is mixed in the common law context, some courts have held as a matter of law that proximate cause does not exist between a sale of a firearm to a person statutorily disqualified from making the purchase and later injuries to a third person through use of the firearm. See, e.g., Robinson v. Howard Bros. of Jackson, Inc., 372 So.2d 1074, 1076 (Miss.1979). Others have held that proximate cause can be found in some such circumstances but may not (as would be required here) be found on a per se basis. See, e.g., Olson v. Ratzel, 89 Wis.2d 227, 278 N.W.2d 238, 250, 249-51 (1979); Phillips v. Roy, 431 So.2d 849, 853 (La.Ct.App. 1983). Such questions have not yet been decided in this jurisdiction. Finally, at most the statute Mr. Hunter violated indicates the foreseeability of the foolish (or, sadly, as here, worse) use of firearms by juveniles.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

In re C.W.
2025 Ohio 262 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 2025)
In re AG v. United States
Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals, 2024
Miller v. Legacy Bank
W.D. Oklahoma, 2023
In re KK v. United States
Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals, 2023
In re AL v. United States
Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals, 2022
Williams v. Commandant
D. Kansas, 2021
In re: Carlos Brown
932 F.3d 162 (Fourth Circuit, 2019)
Morris v. Nielsen
374 F. Supp. 3d 239 (E.D. New York, 2019)
Reed v. Crofts
691 F. App'x 552 (Tenth Circuit, 2017)
United States v. Gary Kovall
857 F.3d 1060 (Ninth Circuit, 2017)
New Mexico v. Department of the Interior
854 F.3d 1207 (Tenth Circuit, 2017)
United States v. Collins
859 F.3d 1207 (Tenth Circuit, 2017)
United States v. Burkholder
816 F.3d 607 (Tenth Circuit, 2016)
United States v. Giraldo-Serna
118 F. Supp. 3d 377 (District of Columbia, 2015)
In re Wellcare Health Plans, Inc.
754 F.3d 1234 (Eleventh Circuit, 2014)
In Re: The Bankruptcy Estate of AGS, Inc. v.
565 F. App'x 172 (Fourth Circuit, 2014)
United States v. Tonawanda Coke Corp.
5 F. Supp. 3d 343 (W.D. New York, 2014)
Vicky v. United States
709 F.3d 712 (Eighth Circuit, 2013)
In Re: Amy Unknown
Fifth Circuit, 2012
United States v. Michael Wright
697 F.3d 306 (Fifth Circuit, 2012)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
519 F.3d 1123, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 7634, 2008 WL 732110, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-antrobus-ca10-2008.