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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 14–1095
_________________
MICHAEL MUSACCHIO, PETITIONER
v.UNITED
STATES
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the fifth circuit
[January 25, 2016]
Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the
Court.
In this case, the Government failed to object to
a jury instruction that erroneously added an element that it had to
prove, and petitioner failed to press a statute-of-limitations
defense until his appeal. We address two questions arising from the
parties’ failures to raise timely challenges. We first consider how
a court should assess a challenge to the sufficiency of the
evidence in a criminal case when a jury instruction adds an element
to the charged crime and the Government fails to object. We
conclude that the sufficiency of the evidence should be assessed
against the elements of the charged crime. We next consider whether
the statute-of-limitations defense contained in 18
U. S. C. §3282(a) (the general federal criminal statute
of limitations) may be successfully raised for the first time on
appeal. We conclude that it may not be.
I
Petitioner Michael Musacchio served as
president of a logistics company, Exel Transportation Services
(ETS), until his resignation in 2004. In 2005, he formed a rival
company, Total Transportation Services (TTS). Musacchio was soon
joined there by Roy Brown, who previouslyheaded ETS’s
information-technology department. At TTS, Brown, using a password,
continued to access ETS’s computer system without ETS’s
authorization. Brown also gave Musacchio access to ETS’s system.
This improper access of ETS’s system kept on until early 2006.
In November 2010, a grand jury indicted
Musacchio under 18 U. S. C. §1030(a)(2)(C). Under that
provision, a person commits a crime when he “intentionally accesses
a computer without authorization
or exceeds authorized
access,” and in doing so “obtains . . . information from
any protected computer.” (Emphasis added.) The statute thus
provides two ways of committing the crime of improperly accessing a
protected computer: (1) obtaining access without
authorization; and (2) obtaining access with authorization but
then using that access improperly. See
ibid.; §1030(e)(6)
(defining “exceeds authorized access”). Count 1 of the indictment
charged Musacchio with conspiring to commit both types of improper
access. Count 23 charged him with making unauthorized access to
ETS’s e-mail server “[o]n or about” November 24, 2005. App.
70–71.[
1]
In 2012, the Government filed a superseding
indictment amending those charges. Count 1 dropped the charge of
conspiracy to exceed authorized access, limiting that charge to
conspiracy to make unauthorized access. Count 2 amended the
allegations originally contained in count 23 by alleging that
Musacchio accessed specific ETS e-mail accounts “[o]n or about”
November 23–25, 2005.
Id., at 83–84. The Government later
filed a second superseding indictment that made no changes relevant
here.
Musacchio proceeded to a jury trial. At no time
before or during trial did he argue that his prosecution violated
the 5-year statute of limitations applicable to count 2. See 18
U. S. C. §3282(a) (providing general 5-year statute of
limitations).
For the Government’s part, it submitted proposed
jury instructions on the conspiracy count before and during the
trial. Each set of proposed instructions identified that count as
involving “Unauthorized Access to Protected Computer[s],” and none
required the jury additionally to find that Musacchio conspired to
exceed authorized access to protected computers. Musacchio did not
propose instructions on the conspiracy count.
Diverging from the indictment and the proposed
instructions, the District Court instructed the jury on count 1
that §1030(a)(2)(C) “makes it a crime for a person to intentionally
access a computer without authorization
and exceed
authorized access.” App. 168 (emphasis added). The parties agree
that this instruction was erroneous: By using the conjunction “and”
when referring to both ways of violating §1030(a)(2)(C), the
instruction required the Government to prove an additional element.
Yet the Government did not object to this error in the
instructions.
The jury found Musacchio guilty on both counts 1
and 2. The District Court sentenced him to 60 months’ imprisonment.
Musacchio appealed, making the two challenges that he again
advances in this Court. First, he challenged the sufficiency of the
evidence supporting his conspiracy conviction on count 1. He
maintained, moreover, that the sufficiency of the evidence should
be assessed against the erroneous jury instruction that included
the additional element. Second, he argued, for the first time, that
his prosecution on count 2—for unauthorized access—was barred by
the 5-year statute of limitations because the superseding
indictment was filed seven years after the crime and did not relate
back to the timely originalindictment.
The Fifth Circuit rejected both challenges and
affirmed Musacchio’s conviction. 590 Fed. Appx. 359 (2014)
(
per curiam). First, the Court of Appeals concluded
that it should assess Musacchio’s sufficiency challenge against the
charged elements of the conspiracy count, not against the erroneous
jury instruction. See
id., at 362–363. Under Fifth Circuit
precedent, the court explained, erroneously heightened jury
instructions generally become the binding “law of the case” on
appeal.
Id., at 362 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Circuit precedent supplies an exception, however, when (1) the jury
instruction is “ ‘patently erroneous,’ ” and (2)
“ ‘the issue is not misstated in the indictment.’ ”
Ibid. (quoting
United States v.
Guevara, 408
F. 3d 252, 258 (CA5 2005)). The Fifth Circuit concluded that
those conditions for applying the exception were satisfied. See 590
Fed. Appx
., at 362–363. The court explained that the
instruction’s requirement of an additional element was “an obvious
clerical error,” and that the indictment correctly charged
Musacchio only with “Conspiracy To Make Unauthorized Access to [a]
Protected Computer.”
Id., at 362. Therefore, the Fifth
Circuit did not assess Musacchio’s sufficiency challenge under the
heightened jury instruction.
Id., at 362–363. Because
Musacchio did not dispute that the evidence was sufficient to
support a conviction under the elements set out in the indictment,
the Fifth Circuit rejected his challenge.
Id., at 363.
Second, the Fifth Circuit rejected Musacchio’s
statute-of-limitations defense, concluding that he had “waived” the
defense by failing to raise it at trial.
Id., at 363,
364.
We granted certiorari to resolve two questions
that have divided the lower courts. 576 U. S. ___ (2015). The
first question is whether the sufficiency of the evidence in a
criminal case should be measured against the elements described in
the jury instructions where those instructions, without objection,
require the Government to prove more elements than do the statute
and indictment. Compare,
e.g., United States v.
Romero, 136 F. 3d 1268, 1272–1273 (CA10 1998)
(explaining that sufficiency is measured against heightened jury
instructions), with
Guevara,
supra, at 258 (CA5)
(adopting an exception to that rule). The second question is
whether a statute-of-limitations defense not raised at or before
trial is reviewable on appeal. Compare,
e.g., United States
v.
Franco-Santiago, 681 F. 3d 1, 12, and n. 18
(CA1 2012) (limitations defense not raised and preserved before or
at trial is reviewable on appeal for plain error), with
United
States v.
Walsh, 700 F. 2d 846, 855–856 (CA2 1983)
(limitations defense not properly raised below is not reviewable on
appeal).
II
We first address how a court should assess a
sufficiency challenge when a jury instruction adds an element to
the charged crime and the Government fails to object. We hold that,
when a jury instruction sets forth all the elements of the charged
crime but incorrectly adds one more element, a sufficiency
challenge should be assessed against the elements of the charged
crime, not against the erroneously heightened command in the jury
instruction.
That conclusion flows from the nature of a
court’s task in evaluating a sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenge.
Sufficiency review essentially addresses whether “the government’s
case was so lacking that it should not have even been submitted to
the jury.”
Burks v.
United States, 437 U. S. 1,
16 (1978) (emphasis deleted). On sufficiency review, a reviewing
court makes a limited inquiry tailored to ensure that a defendant
receives the minimum that due process requires: a “meaningful
opportunity to defend” against the charge against him and a jury
finding of guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Jackson v.
Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 –315 (1979). The reviewing
court considers only the “legal” question “whether, after viewing
the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution,
any rational trier of fact could have found the essential
elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Id., at
319 (emphasis in original). That limited review does not intrude on
the jury’s role “to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh
the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to
ultimate facts.”
Ibid.
A reviewing court’s limited determination on
sufficiency review thus does not rest on how the jury was
instructed. When a jury finds guilt after being instructed on all
elements of the charged crime plus one more element, the jury has
made all the findings that due process requires. If a jury
instruction requires the jury to find guilt on the elements of the
charged crime, a defendant will have had a “meaningful opportunity
to defend” against the charge.
Id., at 314. And if the jury
instruction requires the jury to find those elements “beyond a
reasonable doubt,” the defendant has been accorded the procedure
that this Court has required to protect the presumption of
innocence.
Id., at 314–315. The Government’s failure to
introduce evidence of an additional element does not implicate the
principles that sufficiency review protects. All that a defendant
is entitled to on a sufficiency challenge is for the court to make
a “legal” determination whether the evidence was strong enough to
reach a jury at all.
Id., at 319. The Government’s failure
to object to the heightened jury instruction thus does not affect
the court’s review for sufficiency of the evidence.[
2]
Musacchio does not contest that the indictment
here properly charged him with the statutory elements for
conspiracy to obtain unauthorized access. The jury instructions
required the jury to find all of the elements of that charged
offense beyond a reasonable doubt. Nor does he dispute that the
evidence was sufficient to convict him of the crime charged in the
indictment—of conspiring to make unauthorized access. Accordingly,
the Fifth Circuit correctly rejected his sufficiency challenge.
The Fifth Circuit erred, however, in basing that
conclusion on the law-of-the-case doctrine. See 590 Fed. Appx., at
362–363. That doctrine does not apply here. The law-of-the-case
doctrine generally provides that “ ‘when a court decides upon
a rule of law, that decision should continue to govern the same
issues in subsequent stages in the same case.’ ”
Pepper
v.
United States, 562 U. S. 476, 506 (2011) (quoting
Arizona v.
California, 460 U. S. 605, 618 (1983)
). The doctrine “expresses the practice of courts generally to
refuse to reopen what has been decided,” but it does not “limit
[courts’] power.”
Messenger v.
Anderson, 225
U. S. 436, 444 (1912) . Thus, the doctrine may describe an
appellate court’s decision not to depart from a ruling that it made
in a prior appeal in the same case. See C. Wright et al., 18B
Federal Practice and Procedure §4478, p. 646, and n. 16 (2d
ed. 2002) (collecting cases). But the doctrine is “something of a
misnomer” when used to describe how an appellate court assesses a
lower court’s rulings.
United States v.
Wells, 519
U. S. 482 , n. 4 (1997). An appellate court’s function
is to revisit matters decided in the trial court. When an
appellate court reviews a matter on which a party failed to object
below, its review may well be constrained by other doctrines such
as waiver, forfeiture, and estoppel, as well as by the type of
challenge that it is evaluating. But it is not bound by district
court rulings under the law-of-the-case doctrine. That doctrine
does not bear on how to assess a sufficiency challenge when a jury
convicts a defendant after being instructed—without an objection by
the Government—on all charged elements of a crime plus an
additional element.
III
We now consider whether a defendant may
successfully raise the statute-of-limitations bar in 18
U. S. C. §3282(a) for the first time on appeal. Musacchio
argues that he may do so, either because §3282(a) imposes a
nonwaivable limit on federal courts’ subject-matter jurisdiction or
because a previously unraised limitations claim may constitute
plain error that can be noticed on appeal. We disagree with both
points, and hold that a defendant cannot successfully raise this
statute-of-limitations bar for the first time on appeal.
A
Statutes of limitations and other filing
deadlines “ordinarily are not jurisdictional.”
Sebelius v.
Auburn Regional Medical Center, 568 U. S. ___, ___
(2013) (slip op., at 8). We treat a time bar as jurisdictional only
if Congress has “clearly stated” that it is.
Id., at ___
(slip op., at 6–7); (brackets and internal quotation marks
omitted); see,
e.g., Henderson v.
Shinseki,
562 U. S. 428, 436, 439 (2011) (requiring a “clear indication”
that a statute is jurisdictional (internal quotation marks
omitted)). To determine whether Congress has made the necessary
clear statement, we examine the “text, context, and relevant
historical treatment” of the provision at issue.
Reed Elsevier,
Inc. v.
Muchnick, 559 U. S. 154, 166 (2010) .
Congress has not made such a clear statement
here. Rather, the statutory text, context, and history establish
that §3282(a) imposes a nonjurisdictional defense that becomes part
of a case only if a defendant raises it in the district court.
The statutory text suggests that §3282(a) does
not impose a jurisdictional limit. Section 3282(a) provides:
“Except as otherwise expressly provided by
law, no person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any
offense, not capital, unless the indictment is found or the
information is instituted within five years next after such offense
shall have been committed.”
Although §3282(a) uses mandatory language, it
does not expressly refer to subject-matter jurisdiction or speak in
jurisdictional terms. The text of §3282(a) does not, therefore,
provide a “clear indication that Congress wanted that provision to
be treated as having jurisdictional attributes.”
Henderson,
supra, at 439.
Context confirms that §3282(a) does not impose a
jurisdictional limit. Federal courts’ general criminal
subject-matter jurisdiction comes from 18 U. S. C. §3231,
which states: “The district courts . . . shall have
original jurisdiction . . . of all offenses against the
laws of the United States.” Section 3231 speaks squarely to federal
courts’ “jurisdiction,” in marked contrast to §3282(a), which does
not mention “jurisdiction” or a variant of that term. And, nothing
in §3231 “conditions its jurisdictional grant on” compliance with
§3282(a)’s statute of limitations.
Reed Elsevier,
supra, at 165. This context supports the conclusion that
§3282(a) is not jurisdictional.
The history of the limitations bar in §3282(a)
demonstrates that it is a defense that becomes part of a case only
if the defendant presses it in the district court. This Court held
in
United States v.
Cook, 17 Wall. 168 (1872), that a
statute of limitations—identical in all relevant respects to
§3282(a)—was “a matter of defence and must be pleaded or given in
evidence by the accused.”
Id., at 181; see §32, 1Stat. 119
(statute of limitations); see also
Cook,
supra, at
173, and n. * (citing and describing statute of limitations).
When a defendant introduces the limitations defense into the case,
the Government then has “the right to reply or give evidence” on
the limitations claim. 17 Wall., at 179.
Cook was decided more than 140 years ago,
and we have adhered to its holding. Just three Terms ago, we
reaffirmed that “[c]ommission of [a federal] crime within the
statute-of-limitations period is not an element of the
. . . offense,” and “it is up to the defendant to raise
the limitations defense.”
Smith v.
United States, 568
U. S. ___, ___ (2013) (slip op., at 6) (citing
Cook;
emphasis deleted); see also
Biddinger v.
Commissioner of
Police of City of New York, 245 U. S. 128, 135 (1917)
(“The statute of limitations is a defense and must be asserted on
the trial by the defendant in criminal cases . . . ”
(citing
Cook)). There is, in sum, a long history of treating
the operative language in §3282(a) as providing a nonjurisdictional
defense that a defendant must press at trial to insert into the
case.
In keeping with §3282(a)’s text, context, and
history, we conclude that §3282(a) provides a nonjurisdictional
defense, not a jurisdictional limit.
B
Because §3282(a) does not impose a
jurisdictional limit, the failure to raise it at or before trial
means that it is reviewable on appeal—if at all—only for plain
error. See Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 52(b) (providing for consideration
of “[a] plain error that affects substantial rights” even though
the error “was not brought to the court’s attention”). We conclude,
however, that a district court’s failure to enforce an unraised
limitations defense under §3282(a) cannot be a plain
error.[
3]
As explained above, a statute-of-limitations
defense becomes part of a case only if the defendant puts the
defense in issue. When a defendant presses a limitations defense,
the Government
then bears the burden of establishing
compliance with the statute of limitations by presenting evidence
that the crime was committed within the limitations period or by
establishing an exception to the limitations period. See
Cook,
supra, at 179. When a defendant fails to press
a limitations defense, the defense does not become part of the case
and the Government does not otherwise have the burden of proving
that it filed a timely indictment. When a defendant does not press
the defense, then, there is no error for an appellate court to
correct—and certainly no plain error.
A defendant thus cannot successfully raise the
statute-of-limitations defense in §3282(a) for the first time on
appeal. The Fifth Circuit correctly refused to consider Musacchio’s
limitations defense here.
* * *
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the
judgment of the Fifth Circuit.
It is so ordered.
