## Facts

- Jeffrey Brian Gibert and others organized and participated in cockfighting “gamefowl derbies” in South Carolina involving fights between roosters for sport, wagering, or entertainment.
- Federal prosecutors charged them with conspiracy to violate 7 U.S.C. § 2156, which prohibits knowingly sponsoring or exhibiting an animal in an “animal fighting venture.”
- The statute defines “animal fighting venture” as an event “in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce” involving animal fights for sport, wagering, or entertainment.
- Gibert entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving the right to challenge (1) the statute’s constitutionality under the Commerce Clause and (2) whether the government must prove he knew of the interstate-commerce connection.
- On appeal, Gibert did not dispute the plea’s factual basis; he contested Congress’s power to criminalize the conduct and the mens rea required for the commerce element.

## Issues

1. Whether 7 U.S.C. § 2156 exceeds Congress’s Commerce Clause authority by criminalizing sponsoring or exhibiting animals in an “animal fighting venture” defined as an event “in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce.”
2. Whether § 2156 requires the government to prove the defendant knew the animal fighting venture was “in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce.”

## Decision

- The Fourth Circuit affirmed the convictions.
- The court held § 2156 is a valid exercise of Congress’s Commerce Clause power because the regulated animal fighting ventures are economic activities that, as limited by the statute’s interstate-commerce requirement, substantially affect interstate commerce.
- The court held § 2156 does not require proof that the defendant knew of the interstate-commerce nexus; knowledge attaches to sponsoring or exhibiting an animal in the venture, while the commerce nexus is a jurisdictional fact the government must prove objectively.

## Legal Principles

- Congress may regulate intrastate activity under the Commerce Clause when it is economic in nature and, in the aggregate, substantially affects interstate commerce.
- A statutory jurisdictional element requiring that the prohibited conduct be “in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce” helps confine federal criminal liability to cases with a demonstrated interstate connection.
- Animal fighting ventures involving sport, wagering, and entertainment may be treated as economic activity, and Congress may rely on legislative findings and rational inferences about interstate markets (including travel, trade in animals/equipment, and related effects) to support regulation.
- In federal crimes containing an interstate-commerce element, the commerce nexus is typically a jurisdictional element not requiring defendant knowledge unless Congress clearly imposes such a scienter requirement.
- Where Congress includes an explicit knowledge requirement for certain jurisdictional facts in limited statutory contexts, courts may infer the absence of a broader scienter requirement for the commerce nexus elsewhere in the statute.

## Conclusion

The Fourth Circuit upheld the federal prohibition on sponsoring or exhibiting animals in cockfighting events covered by the statute’s interstate-commerce limitation and ruled that the government need not prove a defendant’s knowledge of the interstate-commerce nexus to secure a conviction under 7 U.S.C. § 2156.


United States v. Gibert, 677 F.3d 613 (4th Cir. 2012)