Opinion ID: 720552
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Commercial Motive

Text: 22 Sirois next argues that Judge Burns should have charged the jury that: The defendant must have committed these acts for the purpose of later commercial use of the photographs. While conceding that § 2251(a) itself does not contain such a requirement, he nevertheless urges us to add one, consistently with our observation in United States v. Petrov, 747 F.2d 824, 827 (2d Cir.1984), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1025, 105 S.Ct. 2037, 85 L.Ed.2d 318 (1985), that Congress believed this legislation was necessary to deal with the commercial exploitation of sexual activity involving children.... 23 When Congress originally enacted § 2251(a), it provided that a defendant could be convicted only if he produced child pornography for pecuniary profit. The Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation Act of 1977, Pub.L. 95-225, § 2(a), 92 Stat. 8 (1978) (enacting 18 U.S.C. § 2253(3), later redesignated as 18 U.S.C. § 2255(3), which defined producing as producing, directing, manufacturing, issuing, publishing, or advertising for pecuniary profit ) (emphasis added). But it later deleted the phrase for pecuniary profit in the 1984 amendments to the Act. Child Protection Act of 1984, § 5(a)(5), Pub.L. 98-292, 98 Stat. 204. The reason for this deletion was set out explicitly in the House Report that accompanied the amendments: 24 Since the harm to the child exists whether or not those who initiate or carry out the schemes are motivated by profit, the Subcommittee found a need to expand the coverage of the Act by deleting the commercial purpose requirement. 25 H.R.Rep. No. 536, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 2-3 (1984), reprinted in 1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. 492, 493-94. By repealing this language, Congress has unambiguously indicated that a defendant does not need to have a commercial motive to be liable under § 2251(a). And it is surely not for us to reenact language that Congress has repealed. Cf. United States v. Bevacqua, 864 F.2d 19, 20 (3d Cir.1988) (rejecting defendant's argument that court should read parallel child pornography statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2), as if repealed commercial purpose language were still in force). 26 To bolster his argument, in the face of such congressional action, Sirois suggests that the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Lopez, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995), renders § 2251(a) constitutionally suspect unless we engraft a commercial purpose requirement onto the section. In Lopez, the Court held that Congress exceeded its power under the Commerce Clause when it banned simple possession of a gun within so many feet of a school, absent any nexus between the gun possession and interstate commerce. Id. at ---- - ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1630-31. Unlike the statute at issue in Lopez, however, § 2251(a) clearly requires an identifiable interstate nexus: either the child pornography must cross state lines or, alternatively, the defendant must know (or have reason to know) that such transportation is planned. 27 It is well-established that Congress can regulate activities that involve interstate or international transportation of goods and people, regardless of whether the transportation is motivated by a commercial purpose. In United States v. 12,200-Ft. Reels of Super 8MM Film, 413 U.S. 123, 125, 93 S.Ct. 2665, 2667, 37 L.Ed.2d 500 (1973), the Supreme Court held that the Commerce Clause empowers Congress to prohibit the importation of obscene material from abroad, even if it is imported for personal use rather than commercial distribution. Similarly, in Cleveland v. United States, 329 U.S. 14, 18, 67 S.Ct. 13, 15, 91 L.Ed. 12 (1946), the Court upheld the Mann Act convictions of Mormon men who had arranged for women to travel to Utah to join them in polygamous marriages, on the grounds that the Mann Act, while primarily aimed at the use of interstate commerce for the purposes of commercialized sex, is not restricted to that end. Consonant with these decisions, we conclude that § 2251(a) need not contain any requirement of commercial purpose to fall within the permissible scope of congressional regulation. 28 Since Congress removed the requirement of a commercial purpose, and since such a purpose is not constitutionally mandated, we hold that the interstate nexus of § 2251(a) does not require a commercial purpose. Accord United States v. Bell, 5 F.3d 64, 68 (4th Cir.1993); United States v. Smith, 795 F.2d 841, 845 (9th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1032, 107 S.Ct. 1964, 95 L.Ed.2d 535 (1987).4. Defining Using 29 Judge Burns refused to define the terms employing, using, or persuading--which appear in § 2251(a)--for the jury, on the grounds that an ordinary person could readily understand what they mean. 30 Sirois claims that the government urged the jury to interpret the word use too broadly. In its summation, the prosecution analogized Coupe and Miller to a vase being photographed; each was used to create a visual depiction. Sirois, instead, wanted to define use more narrowly, to mean take some acts which manipulate or take advantage of a minor. The defense argues that, at the very least, any use by Sirois must have occurred prior to the photographed sexual activity, since the other activities proscribed by § 2251(a)--enticing, inducing, persuading, coercing--must all happen before the sexual activity. 31 Sirois also argues that some clarificatory instruction was warranted, especially in view of the recent debate over the meaning of the word use in 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), which prohibits use of a firearm in certain circumstances. Sirois points to Bailey v. United States, --- U.S. ----, ----, 116 S.Ct. 501, 505, 133 L.Ed.2d 472 (1995), and the Supreme Court holding that under § 924(c), use of a firearm entails active employment, not merely possession, of a gun. See also Smith v. United States, 508 U.S. 223, 113 S.Ct. 2050, 124 L.Ed.2d 138 (1993) (ruling that bartering a gun for drugs constitutes use of a firearm under § 924(c)). 32 Although the word use may pose interpretational difficulties in certain contexts, id., we do not believe that it creates problems here. As the Supreme Court pointed out in Bailey, the ordinary or natural meaning of the word use can be variously stated as [t]o convert to one's service, to employ, to avail oneself of, and to carry out a purpose or action by means of. --- U.S. at ----, 116 S.Ct. at 506 (quoting Smith, 508 U.S. at 229, 113 S.Ct. at 2054) (internal quotation marks omitted). There is undoubtedly an active component to the notion of use. But that component is fully satisfied for the purposes of the child pornography statute if a child is photographed in order to create pornography. 33 Likewise, there is no reason to assume that the use of a minor must occur before the filming or photographing of illicit sexual activity. No temporal limitation is implicit in any of the meanings that the word use ordinarily has, nor is one indicated in the surrounding statute or case law. Although some of the other actions listed in § 2251(a), such as enticing, inducing, and persuading will most often occur before the depicted activity, that is not so of the word use. And we find no indication in the statute that Congress meant to import a temporal limitation into the term in this context. 34 In short, we believe that the meaning of use in § 2251(a) is within the typical juror's everyday understanding of the word. Accordingly, the district judge did not err in declining to define it further. Cf. United States v. Johnpoll, 739 F.2d 702, 712 (2d Cir.) (holding that a district judge need not define the word recently because it is neither outside common understanding nor so technical or ambiguous as to require specific definitions), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1075, 105 S.Ct. 571, 83 L.Ed.2d 511 (1984); United States v. Crockett, 506 F.2d 759, 762 (5th Cir.) (holding that a district court need not define the term commercial gambling house for the jury since it is reasonably within the common understanding of a juror), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 824, 96 S.Ct. 37, 46 L.Ed.2d 40 (1975).