United States v. Yero Grimon

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed defendant's convictions for possessing 15 or more unauthorized access devices in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1029(a)(3) and aggravated identity theft in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1028A(a)(1). At issue was whether the district court had subject matter jurisdiction over a criminal case to accept a guilty plea where the indictment charges a violation of a valid federal criminal statute and sets forth the interstate commerce element of the crime; the factual proffer for the guilty plea states the government at trial would prove that the defendant's conduct affected interstate commerce; but the factual proffer does not contain any underlying facts explaining how the interstate commerce nexus was satisfied.The court held that the interstate commerce element in section 1029(a)(3) is not "jurisdictional" in the sense of bearing on whether the district court has subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate a case, and thus the government's alleged failure to prove sufficiently the interstate commerce nexus does not deprive the district court of its subject matter jurisdiction over defendant's criminal case. Therefore, in this instance, whether the government proved the interstate commerce nexus or failed to prove it, the district court still had subject matter jurisdiction over defendant's case and her conviction under section 1029(a)(3). View "United States v. Yero Grimon" on Justia Law