United States v. Crape

603 F.3d 1237, 2010 WL 1571214
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedApril 21, 2010
Docket09-12470
StatusPublished
Cited by20 cases

This text of 603 F.3d 1237 (United States v. Crape) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Crape, 603 F.3d 1237, 2010 WL 1571214 (11th Cir. 2010).

Opinions

KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge:

Michael Crape was committed to a mental-health facility after being found not guilty by reason of insanity on charges of mailing threatening letters to the President and Vice-President of the United States. Five months later, the district court ordered Crape’s release pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 4243(f), which provides for the conditional discharge of insanity acquittees under a prescribed regimen of medical treatment. As a condition of that release, the court forbade Crape from sending any more threatening letters. When Crape later mailed a letter threatening to kill several teenagers, the court revoked his conditional discharge pursuant to § 4243(g).

We must decide whether requiring Crape to refrain from writing threatening letters and revoking his discharge for the failure to comply with that condition exceeded the district court’s authority under § 4243. We hold that it did.

I

Michael Crape is a mentally ill man with an extensive history of letter-writing. In 2002, Crape mailed two letters threatening the lives of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 871(a). Following Crape’s indictment for these crimes, the Government agreed [1240]*1240to the entry of a stipulated verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. See id. §§ 17, 4242(b)(3). The court accepted the stipulation and, after determining that Crape posed a danger to others, ordered his commitment to a suitable treatment facility until “his release, or his conditional release under a prescribed regimen of medical, psychiatric, or psychological care or treatment, would not create a substantial risk of bodily injury to another person or serious damage to property of another.” Id. § 4243(e)(2).

Crape’s mental condition improved during the course of his hospitalization, and the director of the facility to which he had been committed eventually recommended his conditional discharge pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 4243(f).1 The district court accepted the director’s recommendation and ordered Crape’s release on the condition that he continue to obey his doctors and take his medication. But the court also imposed another condition: “Mr. Crape shall not mail, distribute, or otherwise transmit any threatening communications. Revocation of conditional release is mandatory for mailing, distributing, or otherwise transmitting any threatening communications.”

For unknown reasons, Crape’s condition deteriorated after his release, and he was arrested in early 2006 for sending the Palm Beach County Sheriffs Office a letter demanding “[$]7.3 million for the return of six 15-year-old white females” and threatening to “chop off their heads and mail them to you.” At a status conference held in Crape’s absence, the district court granted the Government’s motion to revoke his conditional discharge. The court made no findings regarding Crape’s compliance with his prescribed regimen of treatment.

Crape appealed, and we vacated the district court’s order. United States v. Crape, 314 Fed.Appx. 199 (11th Cir.2008) (unpublished). We held the district court had erred because Crape had a statutory right to “ ‘be taken ... before the court’ ” and “ ‘afforded an opportunity to testify, to present evidence, to subpoena witnesses, and to confront and cross-examine witnesses who appear at the hearing.’ ” Id. at 200 (quoting 18 U.S.C. §§ 4243(g), 4247(d)). We remanded with instructions that the court conduct a proper hearing in Crape’s presence to “determine whether, in light of his failure to comply with the prescribed regimen of medical, psychiatric, or psychological care or treatment, Crape’s continued release created a substantial risk of bodily injury to another person or serious damage to property of another.” Id. at 201 (citing 18 U.S.C. § 4243(g)).

At Crape’s subsequent revocation hearing, his attorney argued that the court could not revoke the conditional discharge without finding that Crape had failed to comply with his prescribed regimen of psychiatric treatment. The court, after admitting uncertainty as to “whether [Crape had] failed to comply with what [his doctors] told him to do,” rejected that argument: “I have a hard time thinking that [1241]*1241the only way his conditional release can be revoked is if he didn’t follow the doctors’ instructions. It seems to me that overlooks the possibility that the instructions themselves weren’t adequate or that they just — the medicines just didn’t work.” After finding that Crape’s “continued release would create a substantial risk of bodily injury to another person or serious damage to the property of another,” 18 U.S.C. § 4243(g), the court revoked his discharge on the ground that he had mailed a threatening communication.

II

The question before us is whether the statute governing the revocation of conditional discharge allowed the district court to revoke Crape’s discharge without finding that he had “fail[ed] to comply with [his] prescribed regimen of medical, psychiatric, or psychological care or treatment.” 18 U.S.C. § 4243(g). This question comes to us in two guises. First, Crape argues that we decided the issue in his previous appeal and that the district court failed to comply with our mandate. Second, regardless of our previous mandate, Crape argues that the statute precluded revocation in the absence of a finding that he had deviated from his treatment plan.

A. The Mandate

With respect to Crape’s first argument, we review the district court’s compliance with our mandate in a previous appeal de novo. United States v. Amedeo, 487 F.3d 823, 829 (11th Cir.2007).2 “The law of our circuit concerning the obligations of a district court to follow our mandates is settled.” Litman v. Mass. Mut. Life Ins. Co., 825 F.2d 1506, 1511 (11th Cir.1987). With exceptions that are not relevant here, our rule is that “an appellate decision is binding in all subsequent proceedings in the same case.” Id. at 1510.3 Nevertheless, our mandates “do[ ] not bar consideration of matters that could have been, but were not, resolved in earlier proceedings.” Luckey v. Miller, 929 F.2d 618, 621 (11th Cir.1991). On this score, “[a] mandate may be vague or precise” depending on the issues raised on appeal, and “[d]etermining the scope of a mandate can present problems [of] interpretation.” Litman, 825 F.2d at 1511. In determining the scope of our previous mandate, we must therefore determine the scope of the issues considered in that appeal.

In Crape’s first appeal, he unequivocally argued that § 4243(g) required the district court to find he had departed from his prescribed regimen of treatment.

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Bluebook (online)
603 F.3d 1237, 2010 WL 1571214, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-crape-ca11-2010.