United States v. Mahaffey

983 F.3d 238

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Trontez MAHAFFEY, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 19-6061

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: December 4, 2020

Decided and Filed: December 18, 2020

ARGUED: Medora M. Akers, TAFT STETTINIUS & HOLLISTER LLP, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellant. James T. Chapman, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, Lexington, Kentucky, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Medora M. Akers, TAFT STETTINIUS & HOLLISTER LLP, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellant. James T. Chapman, Charles P. Wisdom, Jr., UNITED STATES ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, Lexington, Kentucky, for Appellee.

Before: SILER, CLAY, and GRIFFIN, Circuit Judges.

GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge.

For nearly twenty years, our circuit has held that a drug-trafficking conviction under 21 U.S.C. § 841 does not require proof that the defendant knew the type or quantity of controlled substance involved in the offense. See United States v. Hamm , 952 F.3d 728, 739 (6th Cir. 2020) ; United States v. Dado , 759 F.3d 550, 569–71 (6th Cir. 2014) ; United States v. Villarce , 323 F.3d 435, 439 (6th Cir. 2003) ; United States v. Garcia , 252 F.3d 838, 844 (6th Cir. 2001). In this appeal, the sole issue is whether the Supreme Court's decision in Rehaif v. United States , ––– U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 2191, 204 L.Ed.2d 594 (2019), abrogated our precedent. We hold that it did not.

I.

Law enforcement officials arrested defendant Trontez Mahaffey and a companion at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport for suspected drug trafficking. Each possessed luggage containing about forty pounds of vacuum-sealed marijuana. And hidden within one of Mahaffey's marijuana parcels was four pounds of methamphetamine.

A grand jury indicted defendant on three counts under 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 846 : (1) conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute methamphetamine; (2) possession with the intent to distribute methamphetamine; and (3) possession with the intent to distribute marijuana. During his trial, the government did not establish Mahaffey knew about the methamphetamine—the evidence indicated only that the pair flew to Phoenix, Arizona, picked up the drug-laden luggage, and then flew back to metropolitan Cincinnati. A jury convicted defendant of all counts and attributed to him 500 grams or more of a mixture containing methamphetamine. The district court then imposed a mandatory-minimum sentence of ten years. Mahaffey timely appeals and we affirm.

II.

A.

The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 created a tiered-sentencing scheme for drug-trafficking offenses tied "to both the type of drug and the quantity involved." Burrage v. United States , 571 U.S. 204, 209, 134 S.Ct. 881, 187 L.Ed.2d 715 (2014). Two provisions are relevant here. First, § 841(a) makes it a crime "for any person knowingly or intentionally ... to manufacture, distribute, dispense, or possess with intent to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, a controlled substance." (Emphasis added). Second, for "any person who violates subsection (a)," § 841(b)(1) sets forth a penalty that depends upon the drug type and quantity "involv[ed] " in the violation.¹ (Emphasis added). Mahaffey's violation "involved" "500 grams or more of a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine," so § 841(b)(1)(A)(viii) provided that he "shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment which may not be less than 10 years or more than life." Without the methamphetamine, the statutory maximum for the marijuana would have been no more than five years. § 841(b)(1)(D).

Mahaffey does not dispute that he knew he was trafficking marijuana. On appeal, he contends the government should have been required to prove under § 841 that he knew about the methamphetamine.² The jury instructions on this issue provided otherwise. Mahaffey did not object to them (and understandably so, for they were consistent with our caselaw and Rehaif did not issue until after his trial). Ordinarily, that failure would result in plain-error review. United States v. Gray , 521 F.3d 514, 540 (6th Cir. 2008). However, the government did not raise that demanding standard, and thus has forfeited its benefits. United States v. Williams , 641 F.3d 758, 764 (6th Cir. 2011). So we review this issue of statutory interpretation de novo. United States v. Jeffries , 958 F.3d 517, 519 (6th Cir. 2020).

B.

Contrary to Mahaffey's position, we, along with our sister circuits, have consistently held that for drug-trafficking prosecutions under § 841, the government need not "prove mens rea as to the type and quantity of the drugs." Garcia , 252 F.3d at 844 ; see United States v. Collazo , 982 F.3d 596, 617–18 & n.21 (9th Cir. 2020) (en banc) (collecting cases). Normally, that would end the inquiry. Bennett v. MIS Corp. , 607 F.3d 1076, 1095 (6th Cir. 2010). However, a panel of this court may set aside prior precedent if it conflicts with an intervening decision of the Supreme Court. Miller v. Caudill , 936 F.3d 442, 447–48 (6th Cir. 2019). Mahaffey relies upon the Supreme Court's 2019 decision in Rehaif as such a case.

Rehaif examined the interplay between 18 U.S.C § 922(g) ’s prohibition on unlawful aliens possessing firearms and § 924(a)(2)’s provision that "whoever knowingly violates" § 922 be subject to up to ten-years imprisonment. 139 S. Ct. at 2194. The issue presented there was whether the "knowingly" requirement applied to both the defendant's conduct (possession of a firearm) and his status (being an unlawful alien). Id. Given the "presumption in favor of scienter" and the statute's text, the Court held "that in a prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) and § 924(a)(2), the Government must prove both that the defendant knew he possessed a firearm and that he knew he belonged to the relevant category of persons barred from possessing a firearm." Id. at 2200.

Although Rehaif addressed an entirely different section of the criminal code, several aspects of its reasoning are relevant for our purposes. The Court started by emphasizing the "longstanding presumption, traceable to the common law, that Congress intends to require a defendant to possess a culpable mental state regarding each of the statutory elements that criminalize otherwise innocent conduct." Id. at 2195 (internal quotation marks omitted). This "presumption in favor of ‘scienter’ ... mean[s] a presumption that criminal statutes require the degree of knowledge sufficient to mak[e] a person legally responsible for the consequences of his or her act or omission ... even when Congress does not specify any scienter in the statutory text." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). And "when Congress includes a general scienter provision in the statute itself," it "applies with equal or greater force." Id.

The Court then determined that the presumption applied to the statutory scheme at issue in Rehaif , holding that as a matter of statutory interpretation, the term "knowingly" modified every element of the crime. It stated: "The term ‘knowingly’ in § 924(a)(2) modifies the verb ‘violates’ and its direct object, which in this case is § 922(g).... [T]he text of § 922(g) simply lists the elements that make a defendant's behavior criminal. As a matter of ordinary English grammar, we normally read the statutory term ‘knowingly’ as applying to all the subsequently listed elements of the crime." Id. at 2195–96 (internal quotation marks omitted). "[B]y specifying that a defendant may be convicted only if he knowingly violates § 922(g)," the Court continued, "Congress intended to require the Government to establish that the defendant knew he violated the material elements of § 922(g)." Id. at 2196 (internal quotation marks omitted). So because § 922(g) ’s elements include both an illegal status and possession of a firearm, the government must prove knowledge of both. Id. But the Supreme Court was careful to cabin this holding to just prosecutions under §§ 922(g) and 924(a)(2). Id. at 2200 ("We express no view, however, about what precisely the Government must prove to establish a defendant's knowledge of status in respect to other § 922(g) provisions not at issue here.").

Finally, the Rehaif Court concluded that this textual analysis was consistent with a "basic principle of criminal law"—requiring a "knowing[ ]" violation helps "separate those who understand the wrongful nature of their act from those who do not." Id. at 2196. That is, the mens rea component prevents the criminalization of "an innocent mistake to which criminal sanctions normally do not attach." Id. at 2197. And as it applies to the firearm proscriptions at issue there, "the defendant's status is the ‘crucial element’ separating innocent from wrongful conduct." Id. (citation omitted).

C.

The question we must address now is whether Rehaif ’s "legal reasoning is directly applicable to the issue at hand" to "undercut" our prior caselaw. United States v. White , 920 F.3d 1109, 1113 (6th Cir. 2019). At least three of our sister circuits have rejected grafting Rehaif ’s reasoning onto 21 U.S.C. § 841. See, e.g. , Collazo , 982 F.3d at 607–17 ; United States v. Mejía Romero , 822 F. App'x 1, 3–4 (1st Cir. 2020), United States v. Vela Diaz , 793 F. App'x 351, 351 (5th Cir. 2020) (per curiam). For the following reasons, we do as well and hold that Rehaif does not require the government to prove that a defendant had knowledge of the type or quantity of the controlled substance he trafficked under § 841.

1.

First, Rehaif did not break new ground from a statutory-interpretation standpoint. It has long been a rule of criminal law "that determining the mental state required for commission of a federal crime requires construction of the statute and inference of the intent of Congress." Staples v. United States , 511 U.S. 600, 605, 114 S.Ct. 1793, 128 L.Ed.2d 608 (1994) (internal quotation marks and ellipsis omitted); see Rehaif , 139 S. Ct. at 2195 (citing Staples ). Caselaw interpreting § 841 from the Supreme Court, our circuit, and our sister circuits...