IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-50522

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

RUEL HAWKINS, 

 Defendant - Appellant

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Texas

USDC No. 6:13-CR-178

Before STEWART, Chief Judge, and SOUTHWICK and COSTA, Circuit 

Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

Ruel Hawkins performed oral sex on his 18-year old niece. Because this 

act took place at a park within the jurisdiction of Fort Hood, he was charged 

with the federal crime of abusive sexual contact. See 18 U.S.C. § 2244(b). 

Appealing his conviction after a bench trial, Hawkins contends that offense

* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not 

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH 

CIR. R. 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

February 27, 2015

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

 

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requires proof that he believed the sexual contact occurred without the victim’s

permission, proof which he believes is absent in his case.

The testimony at trial, viewed in the light most favorable to the guilty 

verdict, included the following: On August 5, 2013, at around 4:00 a.m., 54-

year old Hawkins sent a text message to his niece asking if she wanted to 

exercise that morning. Although the two had worked out at the Fort Hood gym 

just days earlier, Hawkins falsely informed his niece that the gym had not 

opened. Instead, Hawkins proposed the more isolated Belton Lake 

Recreational Area. She agreed to go with him, and Hawkins picked her up 

about an hour later. 

It was still dark when they arrived. Hawkins suggested they start with 

abdominal exercises. He told his niece to lay on her back and move her legs up 

and down “like scissors.” When she became sore, she allowed Hawkins to 

massage her stomach. He then moved his hand into her pants. She said, 

“Uncle Ruel, I don’t think you should be doing that.” Hawkins then pulled her 

underwear back and performed oral sex on her for about five seconds. 

His niece jumped up, grabbed her phone, and quickly walked away. She 

felt scared and began crying. Hawkins ran after her, apologizing and asking 

her to come back. Fearful, she started running. She flagged down a passing 

truck and told the driver, “my uncle just molested me.”1 

The driver called police, who arrested Hawkins. Later that day, 

Hawkins met with Agent Daniel Chadwick and gave a statement after waiving

his Miranda rights. In that statement, Hawkins denied touching his niece in 

any sexual manner.

The government charged Hawkins with violating 18 U.S.C. § 2244(b), 

which makes it illegal in the territorial jurisdiction of the United States to 

1 Hawkins is related to his niece by marriage (her aunt’s husband).

2

 

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“knowingly engage[] in sexual contact with another person without that 

person’s permission.” Hawkins elected to have a bench trial and chose to 

testify. On the stand, Hawkins admitted that he lied to Agent Chadwick and 

recounted a very different story than the one he told the day of the incident. 

In this version, Hawkins admitted that he touched his niece’s vagina and 

performed oral sex on her but only because she asked him to do so. The district 

court returned a guilty verdict.

At trial, Hawkins never argued that the government was required to 

prove that he knew he lacked permission to engage in the sexual contact.. 

However, in a post-trial motion for bond pending appeal, Hawkins claimed that 

the statute does require this knowledge and the government failed to prove it. 

The district court denied his motion, assuming without deciding that Hawkins 

was correct about the statute but holding that the evidence established 

satisfied any such mens rea requirement.

Hawkins’s appeal thus raises two questions: Does a conviction under

Section 2244(b) require proof that the defendant knew the sexual contact took

place without the victim’s permission? If so, did that proof exist in Hawkins’s 

case?

No court of appeals has addressed whether the knowledge element of 

Section 2244(b) applies to the victim’s lack of permission. As a grammatical 

matter, Hawkins concedes that “knowingly” modifies “engages in sexual 

contact” rather than the phrase “without that person’s permission.” But 

Hawkins asks us to follow the approach of United States v. X-Citement Video, 

Inc., 513 U.S. 64 (1994). In that case, the Supreme Court found a mens rea

requirement that lacked grammatical support in a child pornography statute 

because of the presumption that “a scienter requirement . . . appl[ies] to each 

of the statutory elements that criminalize otherwise innocent conduct.” Id. at 

71–72. The government responds that legislative history supports the plain 

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language of Section 2244(b), see United States v. Chatman, 2008 WL 2127947, 

at *2 (D. Or. May 20, 2008), as do comparable state sexual assault statutes 

that do not require knowledge as to consent in similar circumstances.

The Second Circuit faced similar arguments in a Section 2244(b) case,

but found it unnecessary to resolve the statutory question because sufficient

evidence supported the conviction even assuming a mens rea requirement 

applied to the “without that person’s permission” element. See United States 

v. Cohen, 2008 WL 5120669, at *2 (2d Cir. Dec. 8, 2008). The same is true in 

Hawkins’s case.

Substantial evidence exists from which the trier of fact could have found 

beyond a reasonable doubt that Hawkins knew he did not have his niece’s

permission to engage in sexual contact. And contrary to Hawkins’s argument 

that any such holding is speculative because a finding on this issue was not 

made below, the district court reached this exact conclusion when it denied the 

motion for bond pending appeal, stating that “the trial record clearly 

established that the Defendant knew that he did not have permission to engage 

in sexual contact with victim.” We agree.

For starters, his niece never gave Hawkins permission to touch her in a 

sexual way, strong evidence that Hawkins knew he lacked permission to do so. 

See, e.g., Cohen, 2008 WL 5120669, at *2 (finding the lack of permission 

probative of the defendant’s knowledge that he lacked permission). Second, 

his niece immediately said “I don’t think you should be doing that,” conveying 

to Hawkins that he did not have permission to touch her sexually. Third, his 

niece jumped up and ran away shocked and crying, providing evidence that she 

had a nonpermissive demeanor during the encounter. Hawkins counters these 

points by parsing his niece’s words and proof of her demeanor, arguing that 

she equivocated by saying “should” and pointing to physical evidence that 

allegedly undercuts her testimony. But the district court did not credit 

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Hawkins’s interpretation of the evidence, and given that we must view all 

evidence to favor the verdict, we will not either.

In many cases, establishing any one of the aforementioned facts may be

enough to support a finding beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant 

knew the sexual contact took place without the victim’s permission, but here 

there is even more. The familial relationship and vast age difference between 

Hawkins and his niece cast serious doubt on his claim that he thought he had 

her permission to engage in sexual contact. See, e.g., Cohen, 2008 WL 

5120669, at *2 (holding that the circumstances surrounding the defendant and 

victim’s relationship were probative of knowledge). And Hawkins’s deceptive 

plan—tricking his niece into going to an isolated area early in the morning by 

lying about the gym being closed—indicates that he knew his behavior would 

not meet with approval. That he apologized right after the incident further 

establishes his guilty state of mind. So does the fact that he initially denied 

any sexual contact took place, only to change his story at trial by admitting 

that it did occur but he thought it was consensual. All this evidence more than 

establishes Hawkins’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt even assuming the 

statute includes the mens rea requirement he advocates.

The conviction therefore is AFFIRMED.

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