CASES ADJUDGED
IN THE
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
AT
OCTOBER TERM, 1997
Syllabus
UNITED STATES
v. CABRALES
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH
CIRCUIT
No. 97-643. Argued April 29, 1998-Decided June 1, 1998
An indictment returned in the United States District Court for
the Western District of Missouri charged respondent Cabrales, as
sole defendant, with conspiracy under 18 U. S. C. § 371 to violate
§ 1956(a)(1)(B)(ii) (conducting a financial transaction to avoid a
transaction-reporting requirement) (Count I), and with money
laundering in violation of the latter section (Count II) and § 1957
(engaging in a monetary transaction in criminally derived property
of a value greater than $10,000) (Count III). The indictment
alleged that, in January 1991, Cabrales deposited $40,000 with the
AmSouth Bank of Florida and, within a week, made four separate
$9,500 withdrawals from that bank. The money deposited and
withdrawn was traceable to illegal cocaine sales in Missouri.
Cabrales moved to dismiss the indictment in its entirety for
improper venue. The District Court denied the motion as to Count I,
the conspiracy count, but dismissed Counts II and III, the
moneylaundering counts, because the money-laundering activity
occurred entirely in Florida. In affirming that dismissal, the
Eighth Circuit noted that the Constitution, Art. III, § 2, cl. 3,
and Arndt. 6, as well as Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 18,
requires that a person be tried where the charged offense was
committed. While recognizing that a continuing offense "begun in
one district and completed in another ... may be ... prosecuted in
any district in which such offense was begun, continued, or
completed," 18 U. S. C. § 3237(a), the court said that Cabrales was
not accused of a continuing offense, but was charged with
2
Syllabus
money-laundering transactions that began, continued, and were
completed only in Florida. It was of no moment that the money came
from Missouri, the court explained, because Cabrales dealt with it
only in Florida, the money-laundering counts alleged no act
committed by Cabrales in Missouri, and the Government did not
assert that Cabrales transported the money from Missouri to
Florida.
Held: Missouri is not a place of proper venue for the
money-laundering offenses with which Cabrales is charged. The
locus delicti must be determined from the nature of the
crime alleged and the location of the act or acts constituting it.
United States v.
Anderson, 328 U. S. 699, 703. Here,
the crimes charged in Counts II and III are defined in statutory
proscriptions, §§ 1956(a)(I)(B)(ii) and 1957, that interdict only
the financial transactions (acts located entirely in Florida), not
the anterior criminal conduct that yielded the funds allegedly
laundered. Contrary to the Government's contention, the crimes
charged in those counts do not fit under § 3237(a) as offenses
begun in Missouri and completed in Florida, but are crimes that
took place wholly within Florida. Notably, the counts at issue do
not charge Cabrales with conspiracy; they do not link her to, or
assert her responsibility for, acts done by others. Nor do they
charge her as an aider or abettor, punishable as a principal, in
the Missouri drug trafficking, see 18 U. S. C. § 2. Rather, those
counts charge her with criminal activity "after the fact" of an
offense begun and completed by others. Cf. § 3. Whenever a
defendant acts "after the fact" to conceal a crime, it might be
said, as the Government urges, that the first crime is an essential
element of the second, and that the second facilitated the first or
made it profitable by impeding its detection. But the question here
is the
place appropriate to try the "after the fact" actor.
It is immaterial whether that actor knew where the first crime was
committed. The money launderer must know she is dealing with funds
derived from specified unlawful activity, here, drug trafficking,
but the Missouri venue of that activity is, as the Eighth Circuit
said, of no moment. Money laundering arguably might rank as a
continuing offense, triable in more than one place, if the
launderer acquired the funds in one district and transported them
into another, but that is tellingly not this case. Neither
Hyde v.
United States, 225 U. S. 347, nor
In
re Palliser, 136
U. S. 257, supports the Government's position that money
launderers can in all cases be prosecuted at the place where the
funds they handled were generated.
Hyde involved a
conspiracy prosecution in which the Court held venue proper in the
District of Columbia based on overt acts committed by a
co-conspirator in the District.
Palliser concerned a
prosecution for mailings from New York to Connecticut in which the
Court held Connecticut venue
3
proper because the mailings were completed in that State. By
contrast, the counts here at issue allege no conspiracy, but
describe activity in which Cabrales alone engaged. Nor do they
charge that she dispatched any missive from one State into another;
instead, they portray her and the money she deposited and withdrew
as moving inside Florida only. Finally, the Court rejects the
Government's contention that efficiency warrants trying Cabrales in
Missouri because evidence there, and not in Florida, shows that the
money she allegedly laundered derived from unlawful activity. The
Government is not disarmed from showing that Cabrales is in fact
linked to the drug trafficking. She can be, and indeed has been,
charged with conspiring with the drug dealers in Missouri. If the
Government can prove the agreement it has alleged in Count I,
Cabrales can be prosecuted in Missouri for that confederacy, and
her Florida money laundering could be shown as overt acts in
furtherance of the conspiracy. See § 371. As the Government
acknowledged, the difference in her sentence probably would be
negligible. Pp.6-10.
109 F.3d
471 and
115 F.3d
621, affirmed.
GINSBURG, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Malcolm L. Stewart argued the cause for the United States. With
him on the briefs were Solicitor General Waxman, Acting Assistant
Attorney General Keeney, Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben, and
Daniel S. Goodman.
John W Rogers, by appointment of the Court, 522 U. S.
1106, argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent. *
JUSTICE GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court. This case
presents a question of venue, specifically, the place appropriate
for trial on charges of money laundering in violation of 18 U. S.
C. § 1956(a)(1)(B)(ii) (conducting a financial transaction to avoid
a transaction-reporting requirement) and § 1957 (engaging in a
monetary transaction in criminally derived property of a value
greater than $10,000). The laundering alleged in the indictment
occurred entirely in Florida. The currency purportedly laundered
derived
*
Steven Wisotsky and
Lisa B. Kemler filed a brief
for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as
amicus curiae urging affirmance.
4
from the unlawful distribution of cocaine in Missouri. The
defendant, respondent Vickie S. Cabrales, is not alleged to have
transported funds from Missouri to Florida. Nor is she charged, in
the counts before us, with participation in the Missouri cocaine
distribution that generated the funds in question. In accord with
the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, we hold that Missouri
is not a proper place for trial of the money-laundering offenses at
issue.
I
In a three-count indictment returned in the United States
District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Cabrales, as
sole defendant, was charged with the following offenses: conspiracy
to avoid a transaction-reporting requirement, in violation of 18 U.
S. C. §§ 371, 1956(a)(1)(B)(ii) (Count I); conducting a financial
transaction to avoid a transaction-reporting requirement, in
violation of § 1956 (a)(l)(B)(ii) (Count II); and engaging in a
monetary transaction in criminally derived property of a value
greater than $10,000, in violation of § 1957 (Count III). The
indictment alleged that, in January 1991, Cabrales deposited
$40,000 with the AmSouth Bank of Florida and, within a week's span,
made four separate withdrawals of $9,500 each from that bank. The
money deposited and withdrawn was traceable to illegal sales of
cocaine in Missouri.
Cabrales moved to dismiss the indictment in its entirety for
improper venue. On recommendation of the Magistrate, the District
Court denied the motion as to Count I, the conspiracy count, based
on the Government's assertions that Cabrales "was present in
Missouri during the conspiracy, lived with a conspirator in
Missouri, and participated in various activities in Missouri in
furtherance of the conspiracy." App. to Pet. for Cert. lla,
14a-15a. Also on the Magistrate's recommendation, the District
Court granted the motion to dismiss Counts II and III, the
money-laundering counts, because the deposit and withdrawals
occurred in Florida and
5
"[n]o activity of money laundering ... occurred in Missouri."
Id., at 11a, 14a.
On the Government's appeal, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the
District Court's dismissal of the money-laundering counts.
109 F.3d
471, as amended,
115 F.3d
621 (CA81997). The conspiracy charge was not part of the
appeal, and that count remains pending in the Missouri District
Court. 109
The Court of Appeals first recounted law that is not in doubt:
"Both Rule 18 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the
Constitution require that a person be tried for an offense where
that offense is committed," 109 F. 3d, at 472; also, the site of a
charged offense" 'must be determined from the nature of the crime
alleged and the location of the act or acts constituting it,'"
ibid. (quoting
United States v.
Anderson,
328 U. S. 699,703
(1946)). "Continuing offenses," the Court of Appeals recognized,
those "begun in one district and completed in another," 18 U. S. C.
§ 3237(a), may be tried " 'in any district in which such [an]
offense was begun, continued, or completed.''' 109 F. 3d, at 472
(quoting § 3237(a)).
But "Cabrales was not accused of a 'continuing offense,'" the
Eighth Circuit said,
ibid.; "[s]he was charged with money
laundering, for transactions which began, continued, and were
completed only in Florida,"
ibid. "That the money came from
Missouri is of no moment," the Court of Appeals next observed, for
"Cabrales dealt with it only in Florida."
Ibid. The
money-laundering counts "include[d] no act committed by Cabrales in
Missouri," the Eighth Circuit emphasized, nor did "the [G]overnment
charge that Cabrales transported the money from Missouri to
Florida."
Ibid.
The Government urges that, in conflict with the Eighth Circuit,
other Courts of Appeals "have held that venue for money laundering
offenses is proper in the district in which the funds were
unlawfully generated, even if the financial transaction that
constitutes the laundering occurred wholly within another
district." Pet. for Cert. 9-10 (citing
United
6
States v.
Heaps, 39 F.3d
479, 482
(CA4 1994);
United States v.
Beddow, 957 F.2d
1330, 1335-1336
(CA6 1992);
United States v.
Sax, 39 F.3d
1380, 1390-1391
(CA7 1994);
United States v.
Angotti, 105 F.3d
539, 544-545
(CA9 1997)). We granted certiorari to
resolve the conflict, 522 U. S. 1072 (1998), and now affirm the
Eighth Circuit's judgment.
II
Proper venue in criminal proceedings was a matter of concern to
the Nation's founders. Their complaints against the King of Great
Britain, listed in the Declaration of Independence, included his
transportation of colonists "beyond Seas to be tried." 1 The
Constitution twice safeguards the defendant's venue right: Article
III, § 2, cl. 3, instructs that "Trial of all Crimes ... shall be
held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed";
the Sixth Amendment calls for trial "by an impartial jury of the
State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed."
Rule 18 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, providing that
"prosecution shall be had in a district in which the offense was
committed," echoes the constitutional commands.
We adhere to the general guide invoked and applied by the Eighth
Circuit: "[T]he
locus delicti must be determined
1 The Declaration recited among injuries and usurpations
attributed to the King: "transporting us beyond Seas to be tried
for pretended offences." The Declaration of Independence, para. 21
(1776). A complaint of the same tenor appeared earlier, in the 1769
"Virginia Resolves." See Blume, The Place of Trial of Criminal
Cases: Constitutional Vicinage and Venue, 43 Mich. L. Rev. 59, 64
(1944). Parliament had decreed that colonists charged with treason
could be tried in England. See 16 Parliamentary History of England
from the Earliest Period to Year 1803, pp. 476-510 (T. Hansard ed.
1813). In response, the Virginia House of Burgesses unanimously
passed a resolution condemning the practice of sending individuals
"beyond the Sea, to be tried" as "highly derogatory of the Rights
of British subjects." Journals of the House of Burgesses of
Virginia, 1766-1769, p. 214 (J. Kennedy ed. 1906).
7
from the nature of the crime alleged and the location of the act
or acts constituting it."
Anderson, 328 U. S., at 703. Here,
the crimes described in Counts II and III are defined in statutory
proscriptions, 18 U. S. C. §§ 1956(a)(1)(B)(ii), 1957, that
interdict only the financial transactions (acts located entirely in
Florida), not the anterior criminal conduct that yielded the funds
allegedly laundered.
Congress has provided by statute for offenses "begun in one
district and completed in another"; such offenses may be
"prosecuted in any district in which [the] offense was begun,
continued, or completed." 18 U. S. C. § 3237(a). The Government
urges that the money-laundering crimes described in Counts II and
III of the indictment against Cabrales fit the § 3237(a)
description. We therefore confront and decide this question: Do
those counts charge crimes begun in Missouri and completed in
Florida, rendering venue proper in Missouri, or do they delineate
crimes that took place wholly within Florida?
Notably, the counts at issue do not charge Cabrales with
conspiracy; they do not link her to, or assert her responsibility
for, acts done by others. Nor do they charge her as an aider or
abettor in the Missouri drug trafficking. See 18 U. S. C. § 2 (one
who aids or abets an offense "is punishable as a principal").
Cabrales is charged in the money-laundering counts with criminal
activity "after the fact" of an offense begun and completed by
others. Cf. § 3 ("Whoever, knowing that an offense against the
United States has been committed, ... assists the offender in order
to hinder or prevent his ... punishment, is an accessory after the
fact," punishable not as a principal, but by a term of imprisonment
or fine generally "not more than one-half the maximum ...
prescribed for the punishment of the principal[.]").
Whenever a defendant acts "after the fact" to conceal a crime,
it might be said, as the Government urges in this case, that the
first crime is an essential element of the second, see Brief for
United States 9, and that the second
8
facilitated the first or made it profitable by impeding its
detection, see
id., at 14. But the question here is the
place appropriate to try the "after the fact" actor. As the
Government recognizes, it is immaterial whether that actor knew
where the first crime was committed. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 5-6. The
money launderer must know she is dealing with funds derived from
"specified unlawful activity," here, drug trafficking, but the
Missouri venue of that activity is, as the Eighth Circuit said, "of
no moment." 109 F. 3d, at 472.2
Money laundering, the Court of Appeals acknowledged, arguably
might rank as a "continuing offense," triable in more than one
place, if the launderer acquired the funds in one district and
transported them into another.
Id., at 473. But that is
tellingly not this case. In the counts at issue, the Government
indicted Cabrales "for transactions which began, continued, and
were completed only in Florida."
Id., at 472. Under these
circumstances, venue in Missouri is improper.
The Government identified
Hyde v.
United States,
225 U. S. 347 (1912), and
In re Palliser, 136 U. S. 257 (1890), as
the two best cases for its position that money launderers can in
all cases be prosecuted at the place where the funds they handled
were generated. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 6. Neither decision warrants
the ruling the Government here seeks.
In
Hyde, the defendants were convicted in the District of
Columbia of conspiracy to defraud the United States. Although none
of the defendants had entered the District as part of the
conspiracy, venue was nevertheless appropriate, the Court ruled,
based on the overt acts of a co-conspirator there. 225 U. S., at
363. By contrast, the counts at issue in this case allege no
conspiracy. They describe activity in which Cabrales alone, untied
to others, engaged.
2 Cf. United States v. Lanoue,
137 F.3d
656, 661 (CAI1998) (stating that crime of being a felon in
possession of a firearm, in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 922(g)(I),
occurs only where the firearm is actually possessed).
9
In re Palliser concerned a man who sent letters from New
York to postmasters in Connecticut, attempting to gain postage on
credit, in violation of then-applicable law. The Court held that
the defendant could be prosecuted in Connecticut, where the mail he
addressed and dispatched was received. 136 U. S., at 266-268. The
Palliser opinion simply recognizes that a mailing to
Connecticut is properly ranked as an act completed in that State.
Cf. 18 U. S. C. § 3237(a) ("Any offense involving the use of the
mails ... is a continuing offense and ... may be ... prosecuted in
any district from, through, or into which such ... mail matter ...
moves.");
United States v.
Johnson, 323 U. S. 273, 275 (1944)
(consistent with the Constitution "an illegal use of the mails ...
may subject the user to prosecution in the district where he sent
the goods, or in the district of their arrival, or in any
intervening district"). Cabrales, however, dispatched no missive
from one State into another. The counts before us portray her and
the money she deposited and withdrew as moving inside Florida
only.
Finally, the Government urges the efficiency of trying Cabrales
in Missouri, because evidence in that State, and not in Florida,
shows that the money Cabrales allegedly laundered derived from
unlawful activity. Although recognizing that the venue requirement
is principally a protection for the defendant, Reply Brief 10, the
Government further maintains that its convenience, and the
interests of the community victimized by drug dealers, merit
consideration.
But if Cabrales is in fact linked to the drug-trafficking
activity, the Government is not disarmed from showing that is the
case. She can be, and indeed has been, charged with conspiring with
the drug dealers in Missouri. If the Government can prove the
agreement it has alleged, Cabrales can be prosecuted in Missouri
for that confederacy, and her money laundering in Florida could be
shown as overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. See 18 U. S.
C. § 371 (requiring proof of an "act to effect the object of the
conspiracy").
10
As the Government acknowledged, the difference in the end result
"probably ... would be negligible." Tr. of Oral Arg. 52; see United
States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual § 1B1.3 (Nov. 1995)
(providing for consideration of "Relevant Conduct" in determining
sentence).
***
We hold that Missouri is not a place of proper venue for the
money-laundering offenses with which Cabrales is charged. For the
reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth
Circuit is
Affirmed.
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