United States v. Brown: District Court Had Jurisdiction to Accept Guilty Plea of Counterfeitor Even Though Indictment Omitted the Mens Rea Element

United States v. Brown, No. 13-10023, from SDGa

Circuit Judge Hull joined by Chief Circuit Judge Carnes and Senior Circuit Judge Garza (5^th Cir.)

Summary:  The defendant pled guilty to knowingly receiving counterfeit U.S. Postal money orders from a foreign country with intent to pass and publish these counterfeits as true, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 473.  As part of her plea deal, she agreed to waive any appeal to her conviction or sentence.  She nonetheless appealed, contending that her indictment was defective (and that the court had no jurisdiction) because it did not expressly allege the mens rea element of the offense.

The indictment at issue alleged two counts based on the defendant’s receipt of a package containing counterfeit money orders.  The statute itself contains no mens rea element, but the required mental state for the crime is knowledge—that a defendant knows the instrument at issue is a counterfeit.  The indictment did not explicitly allege in Count One that the defendant knew the postal money orders were counterfeit.   Count Two charged the defendant with knowingly importing the counterfeit money orders.  The plea agreement provided that the defendant would plead guilty to Count One in exchange for the dismissal of Count Two.

 

At her plea hearing, the defendant acknowledged that she knew the postal money orders were in fact counterfeit at the time she received them.  A federal agent also testified that the defendant had admitted that she knew the money orders were counterfeit. 

The panel found that even assuming the indictment did omit the necessary mens rea element in Count One, the defect was not jurisdictional and was waived by the guilty plea.  A guilty plea waives all nonjurisdictional defects in the proceedings against a defendant.   The panel reviewed several prior cases, among them: (1) Alikhani v. United States, 200 F.3d 732 (11th Cir. 2000), which held that a federal court’s subject-matter jurisdiction over federal crimes is provided by Congress such that it may be successfully invoked when the United States files an indictment charging a defendant with a violation of the laws of the United States; thus, the failure of an indictment to state an offense does not deprive the district court of jurisdiction;  and (2) United States v. Sanchez, 269 F.3d 1250 (11th Cir. 2001) (en banc), which held that an indictment’s omission of an element of the crime does not create a jurisdictional defect—the personal right of the defendant to be charged by a grand jury does not affect the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, since such right may be waived.

The panel distinguished this case from one in which the indictment failed to invoke the district court’s subject-matter jurisdiction over all offenses against the laws of the United States.  This occurs where there are affirmative allegations of specific conduct that is not prescribed by the charging statute, i.e. where the indictment affirmatively alleges conduct that does not constitute a crime at all. 

Since the indictment here charged the defendant with a criminal offense against the laws of the United States, the district court had jurisdiction over his indictment.  The district court thus had jurisdiction to act over the indictment and to accept a guilty plea.

The defendant’s conviction and sentence was thus affirmed.