Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-14-03250/USCOURTS-ca8-14-03250-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
David Lee Knowles
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 14-3250

___________________________

United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

David Lee Knowles

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant

____________

Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Western District of Missouri - Joplin

____________

 Submitted: April 14, 2015

 Filed: April 4, 2016

____________

Before WOLLMAN and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges, and DOTY, District 1

Judge.

____________

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.

The Honorable David S. Doty, United States District Judge for the District of 1

Minnesota, sitting by designation.

Appellate Case: 14-3250 Page: 1 Date Filed: 04/04/2016 Entry ID: 4384528 
David Lee Knowles pleaded guilty to receiving and distributing child

pornography, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2). The district court sentenced 2

Knowlesto a fifteen-year mandatoryminimumtermofimprisonment under 18 U.S.C.

§ 2252(b)(1). Knowles appeals, and we affirm. 

A federal grand jury returned a one-count indictment that charged Knowles

with knowingly receiving and distributing child pornography. The indictment

notified Knowles that if he was convicted he would be subject to an enhanced

sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 2252(b)(1) based on his prior Nebraska conviction for

third-degree sexual assault, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 28-320. The relevant portions of

§ 2252(b)(1) read as follows:

Whoever violates [§ 2252(a)(2)] . . . [and] has a prior conviction

. . . under the laws of any State relating to aggravated sexual abuse,

sexual abuse, or abusive sexual conduct involving a minor or ward . . . 

shall be . . . imprisoned for not less than 15 years nor more than 40

years. 

Knowles eventually pleaded guilty, but disputed at the change-of-plea hearing

the range of punishment set forth in the indictment. He argued that his Nebraska

conviction was not one “relating to aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse, or abusive

sexual conduct involving a minor or ward,” as required for imposition of the

§ 2252(b)(1) mandatory minimum. Specifically, he argued that because “involving

a minor or ward” modifies all three prior-conviction categories set forth in

§ 2252(b)(1), and because the Nebraska statute under which he was convicted does

not require a minor victim, his Nebraska conviction did not trigger the enhancement. 

The district court rejected Knowles’s argument and imposed the sentence set forth

above.

The Honorable M. Douglas Harpool, United States District Judge for the

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Western District of Missouri. 

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Appellate Case: 14-3250 Page: 2 Date Filed: 04/04/2016 Entry ID: 4384528 
We ordered that Knowles’s appeal be held in abeyance pending the Supreme

Court’s ruling in Lockhart v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 958, 961 (Mar. 1, 2016), which

presented the question whether the phrase “involving a minor or ward” in 18 U.S.C.

§ 2252(b)(2) modifies all three prior-conviction categories preceding the phrase

(“aggravated sexual abuse,” “sexual abuse,” and “abusive sexual conduct”) or only

the one prior-conviction category that immediately precedes it (“abusive sexual

conduct”). Lockhart has now been handed down, with the Court holding that the

phrase “involving a minor or ward” in § 2252(b)(2) modifies only “abusive sexual

conduct” and not “aggravated sexual abuse” or “sexual abuse.” Id. at 962. Thus,

§ 2252(b)(2) “applies to prior state convictions for ‘sexual abuse’ and ‘aggravated

sexual abuse,’ whether or not the convictions involved a minor or ward.” Id. at 968. 

The language in § 2252(b)(2) analyzed in Lockhart is identical to the language in

§ 2252(b)(1), and so we must determine whether Lockhart controls in this case. 

Knowles asserts that our court has previously determined that the phrase

“involving a minor or ward” modifies all three prior-conviction categories

immediately preceding that phrase. It is true that in several cases we have assumed,

although without substantive discussion and without directly deciding, that

“involving a minor or ward” applies to all three prior-conviction categories listed in

§ 2252(b)(1) or in one of the federal sentencing-enhancement provisions that use

identical language. See, e.g., United States v. Linngren, 652 F.3d 868, 870-71 (8th 3

Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 132 S. Ct. 1594 (2012) (construing § 2252(b)(1)); United

States v. Hunter, 505 F.3d 829, 830-31 (8th Cir. 2007) (construing § 2252A(b)(2));

United States v. Weis, 487 F.3d 1148, 1151 (8thCir. 2007) (construing § 2252(b)(1));

The three prior-conviction categories enumerated in § 2252(b)(1), i.e., prior

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convictions “under the laws of any State relating to aggravated sexual abuse, sexual

abuse, or abusive sexual conduct involving a minor or ward,” also appear in identical

form in three related sentencing-enhancement provisions set forth in Chapter 110 of

Title 18 of the United States Code. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252(b)(2), 2252A(b)(1),

2252A(b)(2). 

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Appellate Case: 14-3250 Page: 3 Date Filed: 04/04/2016 Entry ID: 4384528 
United States v. Trogdon, 339 F.3d 620, 621 (8th Cir. 2003) (construing

§ 2252A(b)(1)). 

Although the Supreme Court indicated otherwise in Lockhart, we have never

squarely addressed the issue presented in this appeal in circumstances in which a

determination of the issue was necessary to the resolution of the case, and so we are

not bound by the dicta in those earlier cases. “Questions which merely lurk in the

record, neither brought to the attention of the court nor ruled upon, are not to be

considered as having been so decided as to constitute precedents.” Webster v. Fall,

266 U.S. 507, 511 (1925); see Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619, 631 (1993)

(noting that when a court has “never squarely addressed the issue, and ha[s] at most

assumed” an answer, the court is “free to address the issue on the merits”); Prince v.

Kids Ark Learning Ctr., 622 F.3d 992, 995 n.4 (8th Cir. 2010) (per curiam)

(“[U]nstated assumptions on non-litigated issues are not precedential holdings

binding future decisions.” (citation omitted)). In light of Lockhart, we now hold that

the phrase “involving a minor or ward” in § 2252(b)(1) modifies only “abusive sexual

conduct” and not “aggravated sexual abuse” or “sexual abuse.” Thus, a prior state

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conviction triggers a sentencing enhancement under § 2252(b)(1) if the state statute

relates to one of three enumerated categories of offense: aggravated sexual abuse, or

sexual abuse, or abusive sexual conduct involving a minor or ward. 

In United States v. Sonnenberg, 556 F.3d 667, 669-70 (8th Cir. 2009), we

employed a categorical approach, see Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 600

(1990), to determine whether the defendant’s state conviction for lascivious acts with

children triggered a sentencing enhancement under § 2252(b)(1). We noted that

In United States v. Sumner, No. 15-1509, slip op. at 4 n.2 (8th Cir. Mar. 21, 4

2016), we observed that the holding in Lockhart could be applied when § 2252(b)(1)

was at issue, but we declined to apply Lockhart in that case “in light of our

conclusion that Sumner’s prior conviction wasfor ‘abusive sexual conduct involving

a minor.’” 

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“[u]nder this approach, the sentencing court looks to the fact of conviction and the

statutory definition of the prior offense and determines whether the full range of

conduct encompassed by the state statute qualifies to enhance the sentence.” 

Sonnenberg, 556 F.3d at 670. We then considered the text of the relevant state

statute, using the categorical approach, and held that because the fullrange of conduct

prohibited under the state statute related to “sexual abuse,” the fact of conviction

itself established that the § 2252(b)(1) enhancement applied. Id. at 671. We also

noted that for the defendant’s prior state conviction to trigger a sentencing

enhancement, it “must stand in some relation to” one of the three prior-conviction

categories of § 2252(b)(1).

Employing the same approach here, we conclude that a conviction for thirddegree sexual assault under Nebraska Revised Statutes § 28-320 categorically

triggered a sentencing enhancement under § 2252(b)(1). The Nebraska statute in

effect at the time Knowles committed his offense was titled, “Sexual assault; second

or third degree; penalty,” and stated:

(1) Any person who subjects another person to sexual contact (a)

without consent of the victim, or (b) who knew or should have known

that the victim was physically or mentally incapable of resisting or

appraising the nature of his or her conduct is guilty of sexual assault in

either the second degree or third degree.

(2) Sexual assault shall be in the second degree and is a Class III felony

if the actor shall have caused serious personal injury to the victim.

(3) Sexual assault shall be in the third degree and is a Class I

misdemeanor if the actor shall not have caused serious personal injury

to the victim.

Neb. Rev. Stat. § 28-320 (1998). The Nebraska Revised Statutes define “sexual

contact” to mean: 

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Appellate Case: 14-3250 Page: 5 Date Filed: 04/04/2016 Entry ID: 4384528 
[T]he intentional touching of the victim’s sexual or intimate parts or the

intentional touching of the victim’s clothing covering the immediate

area of the victim’s sexual or intimate parts. Sexual contact shall also

mean the touching by the victim of the actor’s sexual or intimate parts

or the clothing covering the immediate area of the actor’s sexual or

intimate parts when such touching is intentionally caused by the actor.

Sexual contactshall include only such conduct which can be reasonably

construed as being for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification of

either party. Sexual contact shall also include the touching of a child

with the actor’s sexual or intimate parts on any part of the child’s body

for purposes of sexual assault of a child . . . .

Neb. Rev. Stat. § 28-318(5). In United States v. Cover, 703 F.3d 477, 481 (8th Cir.

2013), we concluded that the Nebraska statutory definition ofsexual contactset forth

above “fits squarely within our definition of sexual abuse under § 2252(b)(2), which

requires that the conviction ‘relate to the physical or non-physical misuse or

maltreatment of a [victim] for a purpose associated with sexual gratification.’” Using

the categorical approach, we held that any conviction under the Nebraska statute at

issue was sufficient to trigger a sentencing enhancement under § 2252(b)(2) and that

“[w]e need not look to the facts underlying [the] conviction, since the conviction

itself triggers the mandatory minimum under” § 2252(b)(2). Id. at 481-82. 

The same holds true in this case. A conviction for sexual assault under

Nebraska Revised Statutes § 28-320, i.e., a conviction for subjecting another person

“to sexual contact” without that person’s consent, categorically “relat[es] to . . .

sexual abuse” under § 2252(b)(1). Because Knowles’s conviction for third-degree

sexual assault under the Nebraska statute was categorically a “prior conviction . . .

under the laws of any State relating to . . . sexual abuse,” the district court did not err

in imposing a fifteen-year mandatory minimum sentence under § 2252(b)(1). And

because the § 2252(b)(1) sentencing enhancement is triggered by any conviction

under § 28-320 of the Nebraska Revised Statutes—regardless of the facts underlying

a particular conviction—we need not reach Knowles’s argument that, under

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Appellate Case: 14-3250 Page: 6 Date Filed: 04/04/2016 Entry ID: 4384528 
Descamps v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2276 (2013), the district court erred by

considering the facts underlying his Nebraska conviction. 

The judgment is affirmed. 

______________________________

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