Swicegood v. Alabama

577 F.2d 1322
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedAugust 11, 1978
DocketNo. 77-2516
StatusPublished
Cited by58 cases

This text of 577 F.2d 1322 (Swicegood v. Alabama) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Swicegood v. Alabama, 577 F.2d 1322 (5th Cir. 1978).

Opinions

AINSWORTH, Circuit Judge:

Defendants James C. Beil and Daniel Michael Bonnetts were convicted following a bench trial of conspiring under 18 U.S.C. § 371 to violate the Dyer Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2312, 2313.1 The district court sentenced each to three years’ imprisonment. In this appeal the defendants challenge the validity of their convictions on two grounds, neither of which we find meritorious. Accordingly, we affirm the convictions.

The facts in this case are stipulated and fully set forth as Appendix A. These facts demonstrate that between September 26, 1973 and July 19, 1975, defendant Beil stole two automobiles in Illinois and sold them in Illinois to Charles Raymond Jordan, who then transported them to Columbus, Georgia, and sold at least one of them to Leon Brooks Murdock. Between July 9, 1974 and February 17,1975, defendant Bonnetts stole three automobiles in Illinois and sold them in Illinois to Charles Raymond Jordan, who then transported at least two of them to Columbus, Georgia and thereafter back to Chicago, Illinois, where he sold them to Nicholas Katinas.

Beil and Bonnetts contend first that the district court erred in not granting their motion for judgment of acquittal, because even though the automobiles they admittedly stole did move in interstate commerce after the theft, the Government failed to prove that the defendants actually knew the automobiles would move in interstate commerce when they sold the cars to Jordan. According to Beil and Bonnetts, such knowledge is an essential element of the offense of conspiring to violate the Dyer Act. We disagree:

By the language itself of the Dyer Act, set forth in footnote 1, the only knowledge required by the statute is that the property was stolen. Knowledge that the property has moved or will move in interstate commerce is not an element of the offense. See, e. g., Overton v. United States, 5 Cir., 1968, 405 F.2d 168; Bibbins v. United States, 9 Cir., 1968, 400 F.2d 544. Cf. United States v. Doolittle, 5 Cir., 507 F.2d 1368, 1372, aff’d en banc, 5 Cir., 518 F.2d 500, cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1008, 96 S.Ct. 439, 46 L.Ed.2d 380 (1975) (18 U.S.C. § 1952). Beil and Bonnetts were not charged with violating the Dyer Act itself, however, but with conspiring to violate it under the general conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371. It is clarion clear that “in order to sustain a judgment of conviction on a charge of conspiracy to violate a feder[1315]*1315al statute, the Government must prove at least the degree of criminal intent necessary for the substantive offense itself.” United States v. Feola, 420 U.S. 671, 686, 95 S.Ct. 1255, 1265, 43 L.Ed.2d 541 (1975). In this respect the Government’s task was not difficult; both defendants knew that the automobiles sold to Jordan were stolen because they themselves were the admitted thieves. The only remaining question, therefore, is whether conspiracy to violate the Dyer Act requires more — in this case that the defendants knew that the cars would move in interstate commerce.

In United States v. Feola, supra, the Supreme Court held that knowledge that the intended victim is a federal officer is not a requisite for the crime of conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 371 to violate 18 U.S.C. § 111, which prohibits an assault upon a federal officer while he is engaged in the performance of his official duties. The Court found first that in order to incur criminal liability under 18 U.S.C. § 111, an assailant need not be aware that his victim is a federal officer. 420 U.S. at 684, 95 S.Ct. at 1264. The Court then rejected the defendant’s argument that conviction of conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 371 to violate Section 111 requires such an awareness, because, found the Court, the two values underlying the law of conspiracy would not be served thereby. The first of these values is the protection of society from the dangers of concerted criminal conduct. The Court stated “[tjhat individuals know that their planned joint venture violates federal as well as state law seems totally irrelevant to that purpose of conspiracy law which seeks to protect society from the dangers of concerted criminal activity.” 420 U.S. at 693, 95 S.Ct. at 1268. The second value underlying the law of conspiracy pertains to the fact that conspiracy is an inchoate crime. At some point between preparation and consummation of a crime, the likelihood that the crime will be committed is sufficiently great and the criminal intent is sufficiently formed to justify intervention of the criminal law. The law of conspiracy protects society by defining this point of intervention.2 In this regard the Court stated:

Again, we do not see how imposition of a strict “anti-federal” scienter requirement would relate to this purpose of conspiracy law. Given the level of intent needed to carry out the substantive offense, we fail to see how the agreement is any less blameworthy or constitutes less of a danger to society solely because the participants are unaware which body of law they intend to violate. Therefore, we again conclude that imposition of a requirement of knowledge of those facts that serve only to establish federal jurisdiction would render it more difficult to serve the policy behind the law of conspiracy without serving any other apparent social policy.

420 U.S. at 694, 95 S.Ct. at 1268-69.

Following the Supreme Court’s lead in Feola, we find with respect to the Dyer Act that the two values underlying the law of conspiracy would not be served by requiring that those who conspire to violate the Act know that stolen vehicles will move or have moved in interstate commerce in order to incur criminal liability. This result is consistent with our holding in United States v. Muncy, 5 Cir., 1976, 526 F.2d 1261. There the trial court instructed the jury that knowledge that the stolen property had moved in interstate commerce was not an essential element of the offense of conspiring to violate 18 U.S.C. § 2315, which provides in pertinent part:

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577 F.2d 1322, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/swicegood-v-alabama-ca5-1978.