Opinion ID: 801438
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: indecent proposal to a child as crime of violence

Text: The state statute governing the offense of indecent proposal to a child at the time of defendant's conviction, Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 21, § 1123(A) (1995) (Lewd or indecent proposals or acts as to child under 16), had five subsections addressing distinct types of conduct, more than one of which could plausibly be characterized as involving an indecent proposal. In his objection to the presentence report, however, Martinez-Zamaripa did not contest the government's representation that he had been convicted under § 1123(A)(1), which applies to any oral . . . lewd or indecent proposal to any child under sixteen (16) years of age for the child to have unlawful sexual relations . . . with any person. He only challenged the characterization of this conviction as a crime of violence under U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii) based on its asserted relationship to the enumerated offense of sexual abuse of a minor. The immediate question, then, is whether the criminal conduct covered by § 1123(A)(1)all of such conduct, not just the particular act committed by Martinez-Zamaripafalls within the scope of the enumerated generic offense of sexual abuse of a minor. If so, we may summarily conclude under the categorical approach that the enhancement was properly applied. In this regard, the fact that the state crime is not designated sexual abuse of a minor is not controlling. Rivera-Oros, 590 F.3d at 1126 (The label that a state attaches to a crime under its laws does not determine whether it is a Guidelines enumerated offense.). The dispositive point is whether the statute criminalizes only activity that qualifies as sexual abuse of a minor, and thus meets the definition of crime of violence [in] U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2 cmt. n. 1(B)(iii), United States v. De La Cruz-Garcia, 590 F.3d 1157, 1160 (10th Cir.2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). For purpose of this comparison, we look to the `generic, contemporary meaning' of the relevant enumerated offense. Rivera-Oros, 590 F.3d at 1126 (quoting Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 598, 110 S.Ct. 2143, 109 L.Ed.2d 607 (1990)). This court has not specifically addressed U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii) and the enumerated offense of sexual abuse of a minor as they relate to a state conviction for indecent proposal to a child. But we have addressed matters with substantial analytical overlap, albeit in cases presenting certain differences regarding either the state conviction or the federal law framing the sex-abuse offense to which it was compared. While none of these cases is therefore directly dispositive, collectively they point to our conclusion that U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii) was properly applied to Martinez-Zamaripa's conviction. We have twice held that crimes involving encouragement or solicitation of sexual activity by a child constituted sexual abuse of a minor, though in different contexts governed by federal statutes with specific language that helped establish the required equivalence. In Vargas v. Department of Homeland Security, 451 F.3d 1105, 1109 (10th Cir.2006), an immigration case, we held that a state conviction for contributing to the delinquency of a minor through encouraging a child to engage in nonconsensual sexual contact was unquestionably sexual abuse of a minor [under] 18 U.S.C. § 3509(a)(8) and thus an aggravated felony warranting an alien's removal. That was, however, in part because § 3509(a)(8) specifically defines sexual abuse to include . . . persuasion, inducement, [or] enticement. Vargas, 451 F.3d at 1107-08. The Guideline at issue here does not expressly equate sexual abuse of a minor with indecent proposal to a child or some similar offense. Vargas is certainly relevant, in recognizing that a crime involving conduct (like indecent proposal) relating to but not culminating in a sexual act with a child is not excluded from the category of sexual abuse simply for lack of the culminating act, at least when Congress has given specific guidance for its inclusion. But Vargas does not settle whether such a crime is necessarily included in the scope of the enumerated offense generically designated as sexual abuse of a minor in the Guideline. In United States v. Becker, 625 F.3d 1309, 1312 (10th Cir.2010), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 2961, 180 L.Ed.2d 250 (2011), we held that a prior state conviction for indecent solicitation of a child clearly relates to . . . sexual abuse. . . involving a minor and hence triggered mandatory minimum sentences for a child pornographer under 18 U.S.C. § 2252(b). That was, however, in part because § 2252(b) does not require a conviction that constitutes child sexual abuse but only one that relates to such abuse; for § 2252(b) the conviction thus need only stand in some relation to, pertain to, or have a connection with such abuse. Becker, 625 F.3d at 1312 (internal quotation marks omitted). Relying on the broad reach of this language, see id. at 1310, we considered it immaterial that solicitation could occur without actual sexual abuse of a child victimindeed a child victim need not even exist (the defendant solicited an undercover police officer)since the crime required an intent to commit the sexual act solicited and that sufficed to make the crime stand  in some relation to sexual abuse of a minor, id. at 1312-13 (emphasis added). The Guideline at issue here does not have a counterpart to the statutory language bolstering our analysis in Becker (nor does the crime of indecent proposal to a child require the intent to commit the proposed sexual act. [1] See Mayberry v. State, 603 P.2d 1150, 1153 (Okla.Crim.App.1979)). Thus Becker (much like Vargas ) broadly supports treating indecent proposal to a child as equivalent to sexual abuse of a minor, while at the same time the particular force of its holding is blunted here somewhat by a salient difference between the federal statute it addressed and the Guideline to which we compare Martinez-Zamaripa's conviction. In contrast, this court specifically applied U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii) to a sexual offense involving a child in De La Cruz-Garcia. But the crime in that case went beyond mere proposal or solicitation to require physical contact with the minor or at least exposing a minor to a lascivious display. De La Cruz-Garcia, 590 F.3d at 1161. The conclusion that such activity constitutes sexual abuse of a minor under the Guideline certainly accords with, though it does not dictate, application of the Guideline to Martinez-Zamaripa's conviction. [2] More importantly, however, the reasoning underlying the conclusion in De La Cruz-Garcia, particularly as it related to the lascivious-display aspect of the conduct criminalized by the state statute, carries a great deal of direct force here. The defendant in De La Cruz-Garcia had argued that such conduct could not rise to the level of sexual abuse of a minor under the Guideline, because it did not require any actual physical contact with the child. We squarely rejected that argument, following the Fifth Circuit to recognize that `psychological harm can occur without physical contact' and hence that a non-contact sexual offense can constitute sexual abuse of a minor when it `requires [sexual conduct] with knowledge of the child's presence, thereby wrongly and improperly using the minor and thereby harming the minor.' Id. at 1161 (quoting United States v. Zavala-Sustaita, 214 F.3d 601, 604-05 (5th Cir.2000)). The crime of indecent proposal to a child specified in § 1123(A)(1) likewise requires sexual conduct, [3] as well as the child's presence (physical or electronic) to receive the defendant's proposal. [4] And, given the acknowledgement of cognizable psychological harm in this regard, we do not gainsay the societal judgment that proposing a sex act to a minor uses the child in an inherently harmful manner, even if the act is not carried out. Accordingly, adhering to the general thrust of Vargas and Becker and applying the particular principles underlying the rationale in De La Cruz-Garcia, we hold that the crime of indecent proposal to a minor specified in § 1123(A)(1) falls fully within the scope of the enumerated offense of sexual abuse of a minor and hence constitutes a crime of violence for purposes of U.S.S.G. § 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii). The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.