Amicus Curiae Brief — Ahmad Abouammo, Petitioner v. United States

Supreme Court briefJan 27, 2026

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No. 25-5146

In the Supreme Court of the United States

___________

AHMAD ABOUAMMO,

Petitioner,

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Respondent.

___________

On Writ of Certiorari to the

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

__________

BRIEF OF THE CATO INSTITUTE AS AMICUS

CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONER

__________

Matthew P. Cavedon

Counsel of Record

Michael Z. Fox

CATO INSTITUTE

1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW

Washington, D.C. 20001

(706) 309-2859

mcavedon@cato.org

Counsel for Amicus Curiae

January 27, 2026

QUESTION PRESENTED

Whether venue is proper in a district where no

offense conduct took place, so long as the statute’s

intent element “contemplates” effects that could occur

there.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

QUESTION PRESENTED .......................................... i

TABLE OF CONTENTS............................................. ii

TABLES OF AUTHORITIES .................................... iii

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE ............................ 1

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT .................................... 2

ARGUMENT ............................................................... 4

THE NINTH CIRCUIT’S RULE

VIOLATES THE ORIGINAL MEANING

OF THE VENUE AND VICINAGE

CLAUSES. ....................................................... 4

II. VENUE AND VICINAGE PROTECT

THE INSTITUTION OF THE JURY

TRIAL. ............................................................. 9

III. THE NINTH CIRCUIT’S DECISION

INVITES PROSECUTORIAL

GAMESMANSHIP. ....................................... 12

CONCLUSION ......................................................... 14

iii

TABLES OF AUTHORITIES

Cases

Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000) ............. 9

Commonwealth v. Uprichard, 69 Mass. 434

(1855) ........................................................................ 6

Ex parte Crow Dog, 109 U.S. 556 (1883)..................... 8

Logan v. United States, 144 U.S. 263 (1892) .............. 8

Post v. United States, 161 U.S. 583 (1896) ................. 8

Rosencrans v. United States, 165 U.S. 257

(1897) ........................................................................ 8

Taylor v. Louisiana, 419, U.S. 522 (1974) ................ 12

United States v. Abouammo, 122 F.4th 1072

(9th Cir. 2024) ...................................................... 3, 4

United States v. Ta-Wan-Ga-Ca, 28 F. Cas. 18

(D. Ark. 1836) ........................................................... 8

United States v. Wood, 28 F. Cas. 755

(C.C.D. Pa. 1818) ...................................................... 8

Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78 (1970).................... 10

Statutes & Legislative Materials

MICH. COMP. LAWS ANN. § 762.3(1) (West 2000)....... 13

Other Authorities

Brian C. Kalt, Crossing Eight Mile: Juries of

the Vicinage and County-Line Criminal

Buffer Statutes, 80 WASH. L. REV. 271 (2005)

............................................................ 4, 9, 10, 12, 13

C. Steven Bradford, What Happens if Roe Is

Overruled? Extraterritorial Regulation of

Abortion by the States, 35 ARIZ. L. REV. 87

(1993) ........................................................................ 7

Clark Neily, The ABA’s 2023 Plea Bargain

Task Force Report, CATO INST.

(Feb. 22, 2023) ........................................................ 13

Declaration of Independence: A Transcription,

NAT’L ARCHIVES ........................................................ 7

Drew L. Kershen, Vicinage, 29 OKLA. L. REV.

803 (1976) ..................................................... 6, 7, 8, 9

Drew L. Kershen, Vicinage, 30 OKLA. L. REV. 1

(1977) ........................................................................ 8

Eben Moglen, Considering Zenger: Partisan

Politics and the Legal Profession in

Provincial New York, 94 COLUM. L. REV.

1495 (1994) ............................................................. 10

Emma Kaufman, Territoriality in American

Criminal Law, 121 MICH. L. REV. 353 (2022) ......... 5

Emma Kaufman, The First Criminal Procedure

Revolution, 139 HARV. L. REV. 543 (2025) ........... 3, 7

JOSEPH STORY, COMMENTARIES ON THE

CONFLICT OF LAWS (3d ed., Charles C. Little

& James Brown 1846) .............................................. 5

JOSEPH STORY, COMMENTARIES ON THE

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES

(4th ed. 1873) ............................................................ 9

Lindsay Farmer, Territorial Jurisdiction and

Criminalization, 63 U. TORONTO L.J. 225

(2013) ........................................................................ 5

MAGNA CARTA (Nicholas Vincent trans., 2007) .......... 5

Marc Gollom, In Minneapolis, a Burden Lifts

as Chauvin Verdict Brings Relief, Jubilation

to a Tense City, CBC NEWS (Apr. 21, 2021)........... 11

Matthew P. Cavedon, Federalism Limits on

State Criminal Extraterritoriality, 57 ARIZ.

ST. L.J. 811 (2026) .................................................... 5

Patrick Lyons, The Jury Acquitted Kyle

Rittenhouse on All of These Five Counts,

N.Y. TIMES (Nov. 19, 2021) .................................... 11

Paul Mogin, “Fundamental Since Our

Country’s Founding”: United States v.

Auernheimer and the Sixth Amendment

Right to Be Tried in the District in Which the

Alleged Crime Was Committed, 6 U. DENV.

CRIM. L. REV. 37 (2016) ............................................ 7

Robert Morris: Civil Rights Lawyer,

Antislavery Activist, B.C. L. SCH. .......................... 10

Rollin M. Perkins, The Territorial Principle in

Criminal Law, 22 HASTINGS L.J. 1155 (1971)......... 6

Sean A. Berman, Collective Memory, Criminal

Law, and the Trial of Derek Chauvin,

72 DUKE L.J. 481 (2022) ......................................... 11

Simona Grossi, Rethinking the Harmonization

of Jurisdictional Rules, 86 TUL. L. REV. 623

(2012) ........................................................................ 5

Steven A. Engel, The Public’s Vicinage Right: A

Constitutional Argument, 75 N.Y.U. L. REV.

1658 (2000) ............................................................... 4

THE DIGEST OF JUSTINIAN (Alan Watson ed.,

rev’d ed. 1998) .......................................................... 5

Wendell Berge, Criminal Jurisdiction and the

Territorial Principle, 30 MICH. L. REV. 238

(1931) ........................................................................ 5

William W. Blume, The Place of Trial of

Criminal Cases: Constitutional Vicinage and

Venue, 43 MICH. L. REV. 59 (1944)........................... 6

Constitutional Provisions

U.S. CONST. amend. VI ................................................ 7

U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8 .................................................. 7

U.S. CONST. art. III, § 2 ............................................... 7

U.S. CONST. art. III, § 2, cl. 3 ....................................... 7

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE1

The Cato Institute is a nonpartisan public-policy

research foundation established in 1977 and dedicated

to advancing the principles of individual liberty, free

markets, and limited government. Cato’s Project on

Criminal Justice was founded in 1999 and focuses in

particular on the scope of substantive criminal

liability, the proper and effective role of police in their

communities, the protection of constitutional and

statutory safeguards for criminal suspects and

defendants, citizen participation in the criminal

justice system, and accountability for law enforcement

officers.

This case concerns Cato because deviating from the

original understanding of constitutional venue and

vicinage requirements threatens to let the government

forum-shop to the detriment of fairness in criminal

adjudications.

1 Rule 37 statement: No party’s counsel authored this brief in any

part and no person or entity other than amicus funded its preparation or submission.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

The principle that a criminal defendant should be

tried by a local jury is a cornerstone of the American

justice system. Having witnessed the British Parliament’s attempts to try colonists overseas, the Framers

believed that justice should be sought where the alleged crime occurred, by a jury familiar with the community’s shared values. Consequently, they codified

venue and vicinage protections in the Constitution to

ensure that local citizens would decide a defendant’s

fate.

San Francisco-based FBI agents suspected that Petitioner Ahmad Abouammo, a former Twitter employee, had disclosed a dissident’s private Twitter account information to an associate of a Saudi royal.2

They flew to Seattle, in the Western District of Washington, to question Mr. Abouammo at his home.3 The

Government later alleged that during this meeting,

Mr. Abouammo went upstairs, created a false invoice,

and emailed it to the agents as they waited downstairs.4 He was indicted (in relevant part) for falsifying

records and convicted following a jury trial.5 His case

was tried in San Francisco, in the Northern District of

California—two states and 800 miles from the home

where he committed the alleged crime.6

The Ninth Circuit affirmed Mr. Abouammo’s convictions, holding that venue was proper because the

2 J.A. 6–7.

3 Id. at 7.

4 Id. at 8.

5 Id. at 8–9.

6 Id.

statute he violated “expressly contemplates the effect of

influencing the action of another.” United States v.

Abouammo, 122 F.4th 1072, 1092 (9th Cir. 2024). Accordingly, venue could be proper in either the district

where Mr. Abouammo created the false invoice or “the

district of the expressly contemplated effect—where

the investigation [this] was intended to stymie [was]

ongoing or contemplated.” Id. at 1092–93. Mr.

Abouammo could be tried in the Northern District of

California because the invoice he made “was received

by FBI agents working out of the FBI’s San Francisco

office.” Id. at 1093. This was so even if Mr. Abouammo

never “specifically foresaw effects” of his actions happening in California. Id. at 1095.

Extending jurisdiction to any district where effects

might be contemplated is unjustifiable. Such broad

discretion would grant the government a blank check

to select a favorable venue. After all, virtually every

federal entity has investigating agents located in the

nation’s capital and other major cities, who could be

appended to nearly any federal investigation. Under

the Ninth Circuit’s rule, the government could turn

the District of Columbia or any other bureaucratic hub

(such as San Francisco) into the universal venue for

trying federal crimes.

Limitless prosecutorial forum shopping is incompatible with the Constitution’s venue and vicinage requirements. See, e.g., Emma Kaufman, The First

Criminal Procedure Revolution, 139 HARV. L. REV.

543, 545 (2025) (noting that constitutionally proper

criminal venue was originally a strict jurisdictional

rule). The Ninth Circuit’s ruling lets the government

“cherry-pick favored venues through pretextual reliance on out-of-district agents.” Abouammo, 122 F.4th

at 1097 (Lee, J., concurring). This risks allowing the

government to manipulate the jury pool and so further

diminish the constitutionally prescribed role of local

citizens in trying criminal cases.

ARGUMENT

THE NINTH CIRCUIT’S RULE VIOLATES

THE ORIGINAL MEANING OF THE VENUE

AND VICINAGE CLAUSES.

The presumption “that crimes should be tried before a jury of the vicinage—people from the place

where the crime was committed—is a deeply rooted

and important value.”7 The rationales for it are clear.

First, local jurors’ “familiarity with the community

and its practices allows them to evaluate best the competing narratives of the prosecutor and the defendant.”8 Second, it “provides a neutral venue rule that

limits the government’s ability to select a forum inconvenient or hostile to the defendant.”9 “Third, the law

relies upon the subjective experience of the local community.”10 Finally, and perhaps most importantly,

“the vicinage presumption fulfills the jury’s democratic

function by allowing the aggrieved community to participate through its representatives on the jury.”11

7 Brian C. Kalt, Crossing Eight Mile: Juries of the Vicinage and

County-Line Criminal Buffer Statutes, 80 WASH. L. REV. 271, 296

(2005).

8 Steven A. Engel, The Public’s Vicinage Right: A Constitutional

Argument, 75 N.Y.U. L. REV. 1658, 1660 (2000).

9 Id.

10 Id.

11 Id. at 1661.

While these foundational principles are ancient,

they rose to new prominence during the American Revolution. Locality is “inseparable from the institution of

criminal law.”12 Criminal law and locality have been

connected since at least ancient Rome’s Code of Justinian.13 Medieval jurists developed choice-of-law doctrines tying jurisdiction to where a crime allegedly

took place.14 Magna Carta required that cases be tried

“in a certain fixed place” by “honest and law-worthy

men of the neighbourhood.”15

English common law developed to require that an

alleged crime be tried only in the county where it occurred. Courts applied locality requirements strictly,

holding that if a person was fatally wounded in one

county but died in another, the killer could not be tried

for murder in either locale.16 Statutes eventually provided that the county where harm was fully realized

12 Lindsay Farmer, Territorial Jurisdiction and Criminalization,

63 U. TORONTO L.J. 225, 241 (2013); see also Emma Kaufman,

Territoriality in American Criminal Law, 121 MICH. L. REV. 353,

366 (2022). For a fuller discussion, see Matthew P. Cavedon, Federalism Limits on State Criminal Extraterritoriality, 57 ARIZ. ST.

L.J. 811 (2026).

13 Simona Grossi, Rethinking the Harmonization of Jurisdictional

Rules, 86 TUL. L. REV. 623, 634–37 (2012); JOSEPH STORY, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONFLICT OF LAWS 12 (3d ed., Charles C. Little

& James Brown 1846) (citing material printed at 1 THE DIGEST

OF JUSTINIAN bk. 2, tit. 1, l. 20 (Alan Watson ed., rev’d ed. 1998)

(Extra territorium)).

14 Grossi, supra, at 635-36.

15 MAGNA CARTA §§ 11, 14 (Nicholas Vincent trans., 2007), avail-

able

https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/magna-carta/translation.html.

16 Wendell Berge, Criminal Jurisdiction and the Territorial Prin-

ciple, 30 MICH. L. REV. 238, 239 (1931).

could try a crime.17 However, locality remained the

common law’s “exclusive basis of criminal jurisdiction.”18 English law required strict locality even

though every county applied the same criminal, procedural, and evidentiary laws and was subject to the

same sovereign authority—as is the case with the

modern federal criminal system.19

Disregard for locality influenced the drafting of the

Constitution. In the late 1760s, Parliament revived a

law of King Henry VIII allowing for treason to be tried

by royal commissioners “in such shire of the realm” as

they designated.20 This provision was meant to combat

Massachusetts tax protests.21 Virginia’s legislature

protested that colonial defendants had the right to be

tried locally.22 However, Parliament soon extended the

law to the destruction of military facilities and supplies, as well as to trials of Massachusetts law enforcement officials and tax collectors.23 The first Continental Congress decried the first measure, while Thomas

Jefferson thought the second risked colonists’

17 Rollin M. Perkins, The Territorial Principle in Criminal Law,

22 HASTINGS L.J. 1155, 1159–60 (1971).

18 Id. at 1163.

19 Commonwealth v. Uprichard, 69 Mass. 434, 436 (1855).

Drew L. Kershen, Vicinage, 29 OKLA. L. REV. 803, 805–06

(1976) [hereinafter “Kershen I”].

21 Id. at 806.

22 Id. (citing William W. Blume, The Place of Trial of Criminal

Cases: Constitutional Vicinage and Venue, 43 MICH. L. REV. 59,

63 (1944)).

23 Id. at 806–07.

deportation for trials overseas.24 The Founders condemned these measures for depriving accused Americans of local support.25 Though it appears that no overseas trials actually took place, the Declaration of Independence condemned the King’s “transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses.”26

The Framers thus required in Article III that federal criminal trials be held “in the State where the said

Crimes shall have been committed” (the Venue

Clause). U.S. CONST. art. III, § 2. Further, the Sixth

Amendment required juries to be selected from “the

State and district wherein the crime shall have been

committed” (the Vicinage Clause). Id. amend. VI. 27 Article III also provides that crimes “not committed

within any State” can be tried in a venue designated

by Congress, which received an enumerated power to

“define and punish piracies and felonies committed on

the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations.”

Id. art. I, § 8; id. art. III, § 2, cl. 3. The Constitution

24 Id. at 807.

25 Kaufman, Territoriality, supra, at 366.

26 Declaration of Independence: A Transcription, NAT’L ARCHIVES,

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript;

Paul Mogin, “Fundamental Since Our Country’s Founding”:

United States v. Auernheimer and the Sixth Amendment Right to

Be Tried in the District in Which the Alleged Crime Was Committed, 6 U. DENV. CRIM. L. REV. 37, 41 (2016).

27 See also Kershen I, supra, at 830 (noting the historical assump-

tion “that the place of trial and the place from which the jurors

were to be selected were the identical place”); id. at 832 n.107 (“A

jury of the vicinage is . . . from the place of the commission of the

crime”); C. Steven Bradford, What Happens if Roe Is Overruled?

Extraterritorial Regulation of Abortion by the States, 35 ARIZ. L.

REV. 87, 137 (1993); Farmer, supra, at 233 (discussing vicinage at

common law).

contains no similar provision giving Congress authority to set criminal venue as a general matter. Across

all of these provisions, the Constitution sets locality as

a core requirement for every federal criminal prosecution.

Locality is reflected in the structure of the federal

judiciary, too. The Constitution did not directly establish any inferior courts, and several Founders anticipated that federal crimes would be tried in the courts

of the states where they were committed.28 Starting

with the Judiciary Act of 1789, federal district courts’

criminal jurisdiction remained limited to their home

states.29 Only in the late nineteenth century due to the

creation of intra-district divisions did this Court distinguish between jurisdiction and venue.30

Criminal-venue scholar Drew Kershen summarizes: “Find the court with jurisdiction over the crime

by finding the place where the crime was committed.”31 He concludes that, for the Founders and nineteenth-century Americans, “no other test aside from

28 Kershen I, supra, at 812.

29 Id. at 812, 846; Drew L. Kershen, Vicinage, 30 OKLA. L. REV. 1,

3 (1977) [hereinafter “Kershen II”]; see also United States v. TaWan-Ga-Ca, 28 F. Cas. 18, 19 (D. Ark. 1836).

30 Kershen II, supra, at 5 (citing Rosencrans v. United States, 165

U.S. 257 (1897); Post v. United States, 161 U.S. 583 (1896); Logan

v. United States, 144 U.S. 263 (1892)).

31 Kershen II, supra, at 8; see also Ex parte Crow Dog, 109 U.S.

556, 559 (1883); United States v. Wood, 28 F. Cas. 755, 761

(C.C.D. Pa. 1818) (per Washington, J.) (invalidating a federal indictment that did not specify which of a state’s two judicial districts was the crime’s site).

the place where the crime was committed would have

been compatible with” the Constitution.32

II. VENUE AND VICINAGE PROTECT THE

INSTITUTION OF THE JURY TRIAL.

The Framers knew the tyranny of juryless courts

and enshrined the right to trial by a local jury as a fundamental safeguard for liberty. They understood the

jury to be the voice of the community, reflecting its

shared experiences and understanding of justice.

“To guard against a spirit of oppression

and tyranny on the part of rulers,” and

“as the great bulwark of [our] civil and

political liberties,” trial by jury has been

understood to require that “the truth of

every accusation. . . should afterwards be

confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of

twelve of [the defendant’s] equals and

neighbours . . . .”

Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466, 477 (2000)

(quoting 2 JOSEPH STORY, COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 540–41 (4th ed.

1873) (internal citations omitted).

Many criminal defendants have reasons to prefer

local juries. A defendant may “feel that a local jury,

with whom he or she may share cultural values, economic status, racial identity, or just a general sense of

community identity, would sympathize with him more

than the police or the victim.”33 The criminal jury’s role

in shielding its accused neighbors from threats made

by a distant and tyrannical government predates the

32 Kershen I, supra, at 812.

33 Kalt, supra, at 312.

Founding. In 1734, the Crown accused publisher John

Peter Zenger of seditious libel for publishing works

critical of New York’s royal governor.34 A local jury acquitted Zenger in what became a cause célèbre for liberty and government accountability.35 Had Zenger

been tried in England, the outcome may have been different, as a jury from there would not have shared colonists’ grievances.

Locality became especially important following the

passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Shadrach

Minkins escaped captivity in Virginia and reached

Boston, where he was eventually captured by federal

authorities.36 A group of locals stormed the Boston federal courthouse and helped free Mr. Minkins. Two abolitionists stood trial in Boston, and both were acquitted

by a local jury.37 Had they instead been tried in Virginia, surely they would have been convicted.

For all of their importance to defendants, “[t]rials

by a jury of the vicinage are important . . . to victimized

communities as well.”38 Trials can bring closure when

local jurors get to “decid[e] what the standards for conduct in the community will be.”39 Consider the recent

34 See Eben Moglen, Considering Zenger: Partisan Politics and the

Legal Profession in Provincial New York, 94 COLUM. L. REV. 1495

(1994).

35 See id.

36 Robert Morris: Civil Rights Lawyer, Antislavery Activist, B.C.

L. SCH., https://tinyurl.com/42tynfxm.

37 Id.

38 Kalt, supra, at 296.

39 Id. at 315; see Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 100 (1970) (list-

ing as an “essential feature of a jury” the notion of “community

prosecutions of Minneapolis Police Officer Derek

Chauvin, who killed George Floyd,40 and Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot three men—killing two—amid protests following a police shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin.41 Both were tried in the jurisdiction where the alleged crimes occurred. In Minneapolis, grocery store

and bakery owner Nur Ahmed stressed that the guilty

verdict provided “a measure of relief for the city,” stating “[t]he temperature of the city went down.”42 Similarly, in Kenosha, lead prosecutor Thomas Binger

acknowledged the importance of local juries, remarking that “[t]he jury, which represented our community

in this trial, has spoke.”43

The salutary effects of trials by local juries are

threatened by the Ninth Circuit’s rule, which would

degrade venue and vicinage to prosecutorial options.

The location of a trial was never a mere procedural

technicality. Article III and the Sixth Amendment

were designed to ensure that a defendant was judged

by members of the community where the alleged harm

occurred. Decoupling venue from the location of the

participation and shared responsibility that results from that

group’s determination of guilt or innocence”).

40 Sean A. Berman, Collective Memory, Criminal Law, and the

Trial of Derek Chauvin, 72 DUKE L.J. 481, 484 (2022).

41 Patrick Lyons, The Jury Acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse on All of

These Five Counts, N.Y. TIMES (Nov. 19, 2021), https://tinyurl.com/tj8r5zzc.

42 Marc Gollom, In Minneapolis, a Burden Lifts as Chauvin Ver-

dict Brings Relief, Jubilation to a Tense City, CBC NEWS (Apr. 21,

2021), https://tinyurl.com/yzdrynw3.

43 Bruce Vielmetti & Bill Glauber, Kyle Rittenhouse Found Not

Guilty on all Counts in Kenosha Shootings Case, MILWAUKEE J.

SENTINEL (Nov. 19, 2021), https://tinyurl.com/3vptekh3.

alleged crime would greatly diminish the role of the

jury as the voice of the community, particularly when

liberty and civil rights clash with state power and policing—as happened in the colonial context that inspired these constitutional requirements.

III. THE NINTH CIRCUIT’S DECISION INVITES

PROSECUTORIAL GAMESMANSHIP.

“It is part of established tradition in the use of juries as instruments of public justice that the jury be a

body truly representative of the community.”44 The

Framers understood that locality affects the composition of the jury pool. This Court has held that “that the

selection of a petit jury from a representative cross section of the community is an essential component of the

Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial.” Taylor v. Louisiana, 419, U.S. 522, 528 (1974). Assembling a jury in

a different, far-flung jurisdiction would evade this requirement. Here, Mr. Abouammo was tried by a jury

drawn from a community two states and 800 miles

away from the one where his alleged crime occurred. A

San Francisco jury cannot be a fair cross-section of Seattle.

The Michigan prosecution of Clarence Terrell

serves as a blueprint. After witnessing two Detroit police officers chase his sister and a third officer strike

another sister on their front lawn, Mr. Terrell allegedly assaulted one of the officers.45 Fearing that a Detroit jury familiar with aggressive race-based policing

might view him with sympathy, prosecutors devised a

novel theory. Mr. Terrell resided in Detroit, and his

44 Smith v. Texas, 311 U.S. 128, 130 (1940).

45 Kalt, supra, at 272–73.

alleged offense took place entirely within city limits.46

But because his house where his alleged crime occurred sat just 1,500 feet from the county line, prosecutors took advantage of a Michigan statute allowing

any crime committed within a mile of the county line

to be prosecuted in either county.47 Prosecutors eventually charged Mr. Terrell with misdemeanor assault

in a wealthy, nearly exclusively white enclave the next

county over.48 The government engaged in blatant forum-shopping to find a jury pool more amenable to

conviction.

This power to manipulate venue is particularly perilous in an era of political lawfare. Because federal

agencies maintain a nationwide presence and personnel in many different places, the government could

funnel prosecutions into forums where the jury pool is

most ideologically aligned with its efforts. Gunowners

and pro-life protesters could be dragged to culturally

progressive locales, while immigrant-rights activists

and religious dissidents would be dispatched in rural

districts. Tactical maneuvering would win many trials

before a single juror is even seated. In a system where

98.3 percent of federal convictions are secured through

guilty pleas,49 venue would be yet another extraordinary form of leverage afforded the prosecution.

To allow the government to choose its own jury is

to replace constitutional rules with prosecutorial

46 Id. at 273.

47 Id. (quoting MICH. COMP. LAWS ANN. § 762.3(1) (West 2000)).

48 Id.

49 Clark Neily, The ABA’s 2023 Plea Bargain Task Force Report,

CATO INST. (Feb. 22, 2023), https://tinyurl.com/z4wbhvs5.

preferences. The officials tasked with enforcing the

laws should not get to select who adjudicates their

cases.

CONCLUSION

The Ninth Circuit’s decision deviates from the

original public meaning of the Constitution’s venue

and vicinage provisions. Defendants can be tried only

where they allegedly committed a crime, by a jury of

that locale. Mr. Abouammo carried out his alleged

crime entirely in his Seattle home, using an upstairs

computer to create and send a false invoice to the

agents downstairs. He could not properly have been

tried 800 miles and two states away.

Respectfully submitted,