Jones, Dewey v. U.S. (05/22/2000)

By: Amy Merrick, Medill News Service

Questions presented

Whether, in light of U.S. v. Lopez, a 1995 decision that struck down a law relating to the commerce clause of the Constitution, a law making arson a federal crime applies to arson of a private residence; and if so, whether its application to the private residence in the present case is constitutional.

Brief

The feud between two cousins had finally reached its climax.

On Feb. 23, 1998, Detroit resident Dewey Jones drove to Fort Wayne, Ind., and tossed a Molotov cocktail into the living room of James Walker, Jr. Flames engulfed the house, causing severe damage. Jones fled the neighborhood and sped down U.S. 30 through New Haven, exchanging gunfire with the occupants of another vehicle.

After an investigation, police arrested Jones. On June 18, 1998, a federal jury convicted him of arson, making an illegal destructive device and using a destructive device to commit a violent crime. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Jones appealed the first part of his conviction, the arson charge, saying that a federal court should have no jurisdiction over arson of a private home. His lawyers argued that the law used to convict him of arson exceeded Congress' power under the commerce clause of the Constitution because in Jones' case the law was applied to the destruction of a private residence rather than a commercial building.

An act of arson is a federal matter relating to the commerce clause if the property was ""used in interstate or foreign commerce or in any activity affecting interstate or foreign commerce."" The 9th and 11th Circuits have distinguished between commercial and residential properties, ruling in two separate cases that the federal government lacked the constitutional power to punish arson of a private residence.

Also, the Supreme Court in 1995 struck down a law that used the authority of the commerce clause in a similar manner to the contested arson law. The 1995 case, U.S. v. Lopez, involved a statute that made carrying a gun within 1,000 feet of a school a federal crime. In that case, the Court said Congress could not ""exercise its authority to regulate interstate commerce over activity that did not have a substantial connection to commerce.""

But a unanimous 7th Circuit panel rejected Jones' appeal.

""This is a tough row to hoe,"" the opinion said of Jones' argument, ""and not only because the court has rejected the argument before.""

The appeals court opinion said there was sufficient interstate commerce connected to the normal maintenance of a residence to let Jones' conviction stand.

""Although living in one's own house is not commerce, the residential housing industry is interstate in character,"" the opinion stated. ""Goods and materials for housing move across state borders; gas and electricity likewise; the financial and insurance markets that provide loans and spread risks have national if not international scope; arson can substantially affect all of these.""

In Jones' case, the trial jury found a connection between the damaged home and interstate commerce because the owner bought gas in interstate commerce, secured a mortgage from an out-of-state lender and received an insurance check from an out-of-state insurer.

The arson would decrease natural gas purchases and might affect loan repayment, the jury found.

But the appeals court noted that these connections between the residence and interstate commerce were not sufficiently significant to trigger the commerce clause.

However, the appeals court also said that an individual case of residential arson may not have a great effect on interstate commerce, but if residential arson in the aggregate has a major impact, then such cases can be prosecuted in federal court.

""The statute requires proof that the arson with which the defendant is charged have some effect on commerce; only it needn't be a large effect, since the sum of many small effects can be a large effect,"" the opinion stated.

As a category of crime, residential arson does substantially affect commerce. In 1997, the most recent year for which data are available, the Federal Bureau of Investigations recorded 69,269 reported arsons. Of this total, 19,888 targeted residential buildings, with an average of $14,000 in damage per residence. Thus the United States lost approximately $280 million in 1997 to residential arson.

At least some of that loss must have been covered by interstate insurance companies, the opinion concluded. In addition, the arsons affected gas, electric and telephone services, required people to stay in hotels -- another area of interstate commerce -- and prompted friends and relatives to travel from other states to visit the affected residents.

""The collective effect, plus proof of a slight connection between the particular arson and interstate commerce, permits the national government to establish substantive rules of conduct,"" the opinion stated.

But Jones' lawyer, Donald Falk, said the court went too far by considering the aggregate effects of residential arson.

""[The law] requires a substantial effect on commerce,"" Falk said. ""If an activity is not economic, you cannot aggregate every instance in the world to try to show an effect. There's no market for setting things on fire.""

The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari on Nov. 15, 1999, allowed Jones to proceed in forma pauperis, and limited review to the question presented above.

On May 22, 2000, a unanimous Court reversed, holding that because an owner-occupied residence not used for any commercial purpose does not qualify as property ""used in"" commerce or commerce-affecting activity, arson of such a dwelling is not subject to federal prosecution.

""Were we to adopt the Governments expansive interpretation of [the federal anti-arson statute,] hardly a building in the land would fall outside the federal statutes domain,"" wrote Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the Court.