Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-15-02500/USCOURTS-ca8-15-02500-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Corey Lee Steffen
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

___________________________

No. 15-2500

___________________________

United States of America

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Corey Lee Steffen

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellant

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Southern District of Iowa - Des Moines

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 Submitted: December 18, 2015

 Filed: April 8, 2016

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Before WOLLMAN, BRIGHT, and LOKEN, Circuit Judges.

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LOKEN, Circuit Judge.

Corey Lee Steffen pleaded guilty to receipt of child pornography in violation

of 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2). At sentencing, the district court applied an advisory 1

guidelines cross reference because the offense involved “causing . . . a minor to

The Honorable James E. Gritzner, United States District Judge for the

1

Southern District of Iowa. 

Appellate Case: 15-2500 Page: 1 Date Filed: 04/08/2016 Entry ID: 4386580 
engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction

of such conduct.” U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(c)(1). The resulting advisory guidelines range

was 324 to 405 months in prison. After considering the sentencing factors in 18

U.S.C. § 3553(a), the district court sentenced Steffen to 240 months, the statutory

maximumsentence for a violation of 18 U.S.C.§ 2252(a)(2). Steffen appeals, arguing

the district court violated his Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights as construed in

Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), and Jones v. United States, 526 U.S.

227 (1999), when it applied the cross reference based upon facts that were neither

found by a jury nor admitted in his guilty plea. We affirm.

In 2012, a police officerinvestigating child pornography on the internet entered

a public library and confronted Steffen when he concealed his laptop screen. Steffen

admitted there was child pornography on the laptop; a forensic analysis of Steffen’s

laptop and mobile phone revealed 230 images and 80 videos of pornography

involving minors. Six videos and several images captured the thirty-two-year-old

Steffen engaging in sexual intercourse with a victim, A.M.W., who was fourteen

years old at the time. Indicted for receipt and possession of child pornography in

violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2252(a)(2) and 2252(a)(4)(B), Steffen pleaded guilty to the

receipt offense, acknowledging that the statutory range of punishment for that offense

is five to twenty years in prison. § 2252(b)(1). 

Prior to sentencing, the Presentence Investigation Report (“PSR”) described

in detail Steffen’s two-year sexual relationship with A.M.W. during which he

recorded, without her consent, multiple videos of their sexual conduct. Steffen

emailed the videos to A.M.W. and to a friend in Las Vegas, Nevada, telling A.M.W.

that he could make money through online distribution of the material. The PSR stated

that § 2G2.2 of the guidelines governed Steffen’s offense of conviction but

recommended that the court apply the cross reference to § 2G2.1 because his offense

involved producing child pornography. Steffen objected to the cross reference and

to other recommended guidelines enhancements but advised the court at sentencing

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there were no fact disputes that required the government to present evidence. After

hearing argument, the district court adopted the facts in the PSR and overruled

Steffen’s objection to the cross-reference to § 2G2.1, which increased the base

offense level from 22 to 32. Together with other enhancements and a decrease for

acceptance of responsibility, this resulted in a total offense level of 41 and an

advisory guidelines range of 324 to 405 months in prison. 

Steffen argues the district court erred by applying the cross reference based on

a finding that his offense conduct included producing child pornography because

production of child pornography is a more serious federal offense, see 18 U.S.C.

§ 2251(a), (e), and its essential elements were neither found by a jury nor admitted

in his guilty plea. Therefore, Steffen contends, the sentence violated his

constitutional right to have “any fact [other than a prior conviction] that increases the

penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum . . . submitted to a jury,

and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 490.2

The Sentencing Guidelines provide that a defendant’s base offense level is

determined on the basis of his relevant conduct, which includes “all acts and

omissions . . . that occurred during the commission of the offense of conviction.” 

U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(1)(A). “Conduct that is not formally charged or is not an

element of the offense of conviction may enter into the determination of the

applicable guideline sentencing range.” Id., comment. (backg’d.). Early in the

mandatory guidelines era, our en banc court held that it was constitutionally

permissible for the mandatory Guidelines to “allow relevant conduct, including

uncharged conduct . . . to determine a sentence within the statutory maximum” of the

The government argues we should review this contention only for plain error

2

because, in the district court, Steffen did not object to use of the cross reference on

this ground. See United States v. Pirani, 406 F.3d 543, 549 (8th Cir.) (en banc), cert.

denied, 546 U.S. 909 (2005). We need not address this issue because we conclude

that Steffen’s contention is without merit. 

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offense of conviction. United States v. Galloway, 976 F.2d 414, 424 (8th Cir. 1992)

(en banc), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 974 (1993).

The Supreme Court subsequently held that the mandatory Guidelines violated

Apprendi’s constitutional principle in United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005),

a landmark decision that put in place an advisory guidelines regime the district court

applied in sentencing Steffen. The constitutional issue as framed by Justice Stevens

in an opinion for the Court in Booker is critical to resolving the issue Steffen raises:

If the Guidelines as currently written could be read as merely

advisory provisions that recommended, rather than required, the

selection of particular sentences in response to differing sets of facts,

their use would not implicate the Sixth Amendment. We have never

doubted the authority of a judge to exercise broad discretion in imposing

a sentence within a statutory range. 

Id. at 233; accord Alleyene v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 2151, 2163 (2013). 

In this case, Steffen does not deny that the facts on which the district court

based its application of the cross reference -- Steffen secretly making pornographic

videos of his sexual relations with a minor -- were relevant conduct in determining

his advisory guidelines sentencing range. He also concedes, as he must, that the

statutory maximum sentence was not increased by these findings, and that he was in

fact sentenced within the authorized statutory range. Thus, the only effect of the

findings was to influence the district court’s exercise of its discretion to impose a

sentence within that statutory range. This is a constitutionally permissible effect

under Apprendi as applied in Booker. Steffen argues that the facts warranting the

cross reference were elements of a separate crime, namely, the production of child

pornography. Even if true, that simply means the district court determined his

advisory guidelines range based on uncharged relevant conduct, as § 1B1.3 of the

guidelines requires and the Sixth Amendment permits. A fact that “influences

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judicial discretion” but does not “alter[] the legally prescribed punishment so as to

aggravate it,” need not be found by a jury. Alleyne, 133 S. Ct. at 2162-63. 

Steffen argues that the crossreference established a guidelinesrange above the

statutory maximum, “creat[ing] a situation in which anything less than the statutory

maximum is extraordinary.” But the same is true of any adverse sentencing factor

that persuades a district court that defendant’s offense conduct warrants punishment

at least as severe as the statutory maximum sentence. “[T]he Sixth Amendment does

not govern that element of sentencing.” Alleyne, 133 S. Ct. at 2161 n.2; see United

States v. Jenkins, 792 F.3d 931, 935-36 (8th Cir. 2015) (cross reference resulted in

guidelines range greater than the statutory maximum); United States v. Davis, 753

F.3d 1361, 1361-62 (8th Cir.) (same), cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 393 (2014). 

Steffen’s reliance on Jones v. United States is misplaced because that case

turned on a question of statutory interpretation. 526 U.S. at 229. Jones was

sentenced under a subsection of the federal carjacking statute that increased the

statutory maximum sentence. See 18 U.S.C. § 2119(2). The Court held that the facts

needed to impose that greater sentence were elements of an independent offense that

must be found by a jury, not sentencing factors that may be found by the sentencing

judge by a preponderance of the evidence. Jones, 526 U.S. at 252; see United States

v. O’Brien, 560 U.S. 218, 224-26 (2010). Here, Steffen pleaded guilty to violating

18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2) and was sentenced to its statutory maximum punishment. In

exercising its sentencing discretion, the district court considered uncharged conduct,

that is, facts that undoubtedly could have supported additional criminal charges. But

under the advisory guidelines as construed in Booker, the Sixth Amendment did not

require that the court determine the additional offenses that could have been charged

and then submit the factual elements of those offenses to a jury.

The judgment of the district court is affirmed. 

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