“Interstate Domestic Violence Ends at Death” – A Fourth-Circuit Limitation on 18 U.S.C. § 2261 and Confining the § 844(h)(1) Use-of-Fire Enhancement

1. Introduction

In United States v. Lawrence Florentine, No. 24-4206 (4th Cir. Aug. 7, 2025), the Fourth Circuit confronted the seldom-litigated overlap between two federal criminal statutes:

• 18 U.S.C. § 2261(a)(2) – Interstate Domestic Violence (IDV);
• 18 U.S.C. § 844(h)(1) – Using Fire (or an Explosive) “to Commit any Felony.”

The Government charged Lawrence Florentine with murdering his wife during an interstate trip (IDV) and, separately, with using fire to commit that felony because he burned her body afterwards. The District Court treated IDV as a “continuing offense” that persisted beyond the victim’s death. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit squarely rejected that view, holding that the IDV offense terminates at the moment the victim dies; subsequent concealment efforts—including burning a corpse—lie outside § 2261. As a result, burning the body could not serve as a predicate for § 844(h)(1).

Although the panel reversed the denial of Florentine’s motion to dismiss Count 4 (use-of-fire), it left his 30-year sentence intact, finding the District Court had independently justified the same term on the remaining counts. The decision therefore crafts new precedent on the temporal scope of IDV while refining resentencing doctrine.

2. Summary of the Judgment

The Fourth Circuit (Judge Berner, joined by Judges Agee and Thacker) held:

1. Substantive Holding – The felony of interstate domestic violence “ends when the victim dies.” Concealment or destruction of the victim’s remains is not “in furtherance of” or “part of” the IDV offense.
2. Application – Because Florentine set the corpse on fire only after the IDV was complete, § 844(h)(1) (use-of-fire “to commit any felony”) did not apply; Count 4 should have been dismissed.
3. Remedy – Full resentencing was unnecessary. The District Court built an extensive alternative rationale—grounded in the § 3553(a) factors—explaining it would impose the same 360-month sentence even absent Count 4. The panel therefore remanded “solely for entry of an amended judgment” deleting the fire count.

3. Detailed Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited and Their Influence

• United States v. Helem, 186 F.3d 449 (4th Cir. 1999) – Read “in the course of” broadly, allowing IDV liability for violence inflicted before interstate travel. The panel distinguished Helem, noting it never extended IDV beyond a victim’s death.
• United States v. Desposito, 704 F.3d 221 (2d Cir. 2013) & United States v. McAuliffe, 490 F.3d 526 (6th Cir. 2007) – Illustrated the expansive meaning of “uses fire” under § 844(h)(1). Nonetheless, the critical variable is whether the underlying felony is still occurring, which was not the case here.
• Toussie v. United States, 397 U.S. 112 (1970) – Articulated the concept of a “continuing offense.”
• Grunewald v. United States, 353 U.S. 391 (1957) – Drew the “vital distinction” between concealment integral to an offense and post-offense cover-ups. The panel analogized Florentine’s burning of the body to post-offense concealment, outside the substantive crime.
• United States v. Zayac, 765 F.3d 112 (2d Cir. 2014) – Discussed kidnapping-resulting-in-death as a continuing offense through at least the abandonment of the body. The Fourth Circuit used Zayac only to show that Congress did expressly cover corpse transport in the kidnapping statute, but not in § 2261.

3.2 Statutory Text and Legal Reasoning

Section 2261(a)(2) (as amended in 2000) criminalizes causing a spouse/intimate partner to travel interstate “by force, coercion, duress, or fraud” and then committing or attempting a crime of violence “in the course of, as a result of, or to facilitate such travel.” The court’s logical progression:

1. The statute’s subjects (“spouse,” “partner”) presuppose living persons. Once dead, Nicole could no longer be “caused to travel.”
2. Congress, when it wants an offense to extend post-mortem, says so—compare the kidnapping statute, § 1201, expressly covering transport of a deceased person. The omission in § 2261 is therefore deliberate (expressio unius canon).
3. Concealment acts (e.g., burning a body) resemble conspiratorial cover-ups described in Grunewald; they follow attainment of the crime’s primary objective and thus fall outside the offense’s temporal scope.
4. Because the predicate felony had ended, § 844(h)(1) could not attach: that provision only penalizes using fire “to commit” a still-ongoing felony.

3.3 Impact on Future Litigation and Practice

• Restricting Prosecutorial Theories – United States Attorneys in the Fourth Circuit can no longer rely on post-mortem concealment acts to bootstrap § 844(h)(1) or § 924(c) enhancements onto IDV counts.
• Continuing-Offense Jurisprudence – The decision crystallizes a boundary: crimes against individuals (“personal offenses”) typically cease at death unless Congress clearly says otherwise.
• Charging Strategies – Prosecutors may respond by adding separate counts (e.g., § 1519 obstruction, § 641 destruction of evidence) rather than stretching IDV.
• Sentencing Dynamics – District judges may still replicate the overall punishment via upward variances, but must articulate § 3553(a) justifications as the Florentine court did.
• Appellate Waivers and Conditional Pleas – Demonstrates the utility of preserving specific issues for appeal, and shows appellate courts will reach merits when a plea agreement conditions guilt on that right.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Continuing Offense – A crime that, by its very nature, extends over time (e.g., conspiracy, kidnapping). The key inquiry is when the central objective ends.
• Predicate Felony – An underlying crime that “activates” an enhancement statute like § 844(h)(1). If the predicate is complete, the enhancement cannot attach.
• § 3553(a) Factors – Statutory considerations governing federal sentencing (nature of offense, history of defendant, deterrence, protection of the public, etc.). A judge must explain how these justify any variance from the Sentencing Guidelines.
• Upward Variance vs. Departure – A variance is a sentence outside the guideline range based on § 3553(a) factors; a departure is based on guideline policy statements. Florentine involved a variance.
• Amended Judgment – A clerical or limited modification to the written judgment reflecting appellate disposition (here, deleting Count 4 without changing the sentence length).

5. Conclusion

The Fourth Circuit’s published opinion in United States v. Florentine solidifies a clear rule: interstate domestic violence under § 2261(a)(2) terminates upon the victim’s death. Efforts at concealment—no matter how gruesome—do not keep the offense alive for purposes of enhancements such as § 844(h)(1). The court’s meticulous statutory reading, anchored in textualism and Supreme Court precedent on continuing offenses, narrows prosecutorial leverage while reinforcing principled sentence-explanation requirements. Practitioners must now separate post-death conduct into distinct charges rather than stretch IDV beyond its textual limits. The decision thus shapes both charging decisions and sentencing appellate review within the Fourth Circuit and invites sister circuits to address similar questions with comparable rigor.

Disclaimer: This commentary is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.