United States v. Samuel Bailey, Jr.

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 14-4250
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
SAMUEL BAILEY, JR., a/k/a Samuel Bailey,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern
District of West Virginia, at Charleston. Thomas E. Johnston,
District Judge. (2:14-cr-00024-1)
Submitted: January 27, 2015 Decided: February 3, 2015
Before WILKINSON, GREGORY, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Harold Michael Vaught, HAROLD M. VAUGHT ATTORNEY AT LAW,
Norwalk, California, for Appellant. R. Booth Goodwin II, United
States Attorney, Erik S. Goes, Assistant United States Attorney,
Charleston, West Virginia, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Samuel Bailey, Jr., a sex offender subject to the
requirements of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification
Act (“SORNA”), entered a conditional plea of guilty to a charge
of failing to register after he moved from West Virginia to
Ohio. He appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to
dismiss the indictment, arguing that the Southern District of
Ohio, in which he was required to register, is the proper venue
for his prosecution.
This court reviews de novo a district court’s venue
determination. United States v. Jefferson, 674 F.3d 332, 364
(4th Cir. 2012). Venue lies in the state and district where the
offense was “committed.” U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 3; Fed.
R. Crim. P. 18. Where, as here, the criminal statute does not
contain an express venue provision, the court must determine
proper venue by considering “the nature of the crime alleged and
the location of the act or acts constituting it.” United
States v. Bowens, 224 F.3d 302, 308 (4th Cir. 2000) (internal
quotation marks omitted).
A convicted sex offender’s act of interstate travel
both “serve[s] as a jurisdictional predicate for § 2250 [and] is
also . . . the very conduct at which Congress took aim” in
enacting the statute. Carr v. United States, 560 U.S. 438, 454
(2010). Bailey’s offense necessarily involved more than one
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district because it required interstate travel between West
Virginia and Ohio. In this situation, venue is governed by 18
U.S.C. § 3237(a) (2012), which provides that “any offense
against the United States begun in one district and completed in
another, or committed in more than one district, may be . . .
prosecuted in any district in which such offense was begun,
continued, or completed.”
Bailey’s offense began when he moved from West
Virginia, which gave rise to his obligation to register in Ohio,
and was completed when he failed to register in Ohio. 42 U.S.C.
§ 16913(c) (2012). Because Bailey’s offense commenced when he
moved from the Southern District of West Virginia, venue there
is proper. See United States v. Lewis, 768 F.3d 1086, 1090-94
(10th Cir. 2014) (holding that venue for § 2250 violation was
proper in district from which defendant moved); United States v.
Leach, 639 F.3d 769, 771-72 (7th Cir. 2011) (same); United
States v. Howell, 552 F.3d 709, 717-18 (8th Cir. 2009) (same).
Bailey’s reliance on the Eighth Circuit’s decision in United
States v. Lunsford, 725 F.3d 859 (8th Cir. 2013), is misplaced
as that decision does not address the issue of venue and is
based on inapposite facts. See id. at 861-64 (holding no SORNA
violation when defendant moved to foreign country and failed to
update registration in district where he formerly resided).
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Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district
court. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials
before the court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
AFFIRMED
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