Opinion ID: 171274
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Meaning of Criminal Sexual Abuse

Text: We review de novo the legal determinations of the district court relating to sentencing. Kristl, 437 F.3d at 1054. Under USSG § 2G1.1 the court should apply § 2A3.1 to prohibited sexual conduct if the offense involved criminal sexual abuse prohibited by either 18 U.S.C. § 2241 or § 2242(1). See USSG § 2G1.1(c)(2); id. cmt. n.10. Section 2241 prohibits causing another “to engage in a sexual act” by use of force or “by threatening or placing [the victim] in fear that any person will be subjected to death, serious bodily injury, or kidnapping.” Section 2242(1) prohibits “caus[ing] another person to engage in a sexual act by threatening or placing [the victim] in fear (other than by threatening or placing that other person in fear that any person will be subjected to death, serious bodily injury, or kidnapping).” -5- Mr. Fish contends that § 2A3.1 applies only if the defendant placed the victim in fear of bodily injury. But 18 U.S.C. § 2242(1) requires only “fear” in general. In this case Mr. Fish told his nephew that if he did not do as he was told, Mr. Fish would leave him on the side of the road. Such a threat would certainly induce significant fear in a 13-year-old boy who was thousands of miles from his home and family. Our precedents are not to the contrary. Although we have held that placing a victim in fear of bodily injury can constitute a violation of § 2242(1), see United States v. Castillo, 140 F.3d 874, 885 (10th Cir. 1998), we have not said that placing a victim in fear of bodily injury, as opposed to fear of another sort, is a necessary element of the offense. Indeed, we have declared that the meaning of fear in § 2242(1) “is very broad.” Id. Two sister circuits have also adopted a broad interpretation of fear. In United States v. Johns, 15 F.3d 740 (8th Cir. 1994), the defendant, who lived in an intimate relationship with the victim’s mother, dominated every aspect of the victim’s life: “choosing her clothes, isolating her from friends and her biological father, controlling her activities, pulling her out of school to engage in sex, and constantly changing household rules and becoming enraged when they were not followed,” id. at 743. As the victim’s spiritual teacher, he told his victim that if she did not follow his commands, she would be rejected by the spirits, which would “result in harm to her or a loved one, such as illness or inability to have -6- children.” Id. at 742. The Eighth Circuit ruled that the defendant had placed his victim in fear within the meaning of § 2242(1). Id. at 743. And the Ninth Circuit expressed a broad view when it said: A reasonable construction of section 2242(1) is that it encompasses all fears of harm to oneself or another other than death, serious bodily injury or kidnapping. A person of ordinary intelligence would understand the kind of fear the statute prohibits is fear of harm to self or others. The possible range of “harm,” like the possible range of “fear,” is very large. United States v. Gavin, 959 F.2d 788, 791 (9th Cir. 1992). In addition, we find persuasive an unpublished opinion by a panel of this court. In United States v. King, Nos. 99-2333, 99-2306, 2000 WL 725480 (10th Cir. June 6, 2000), the panel determined that a medicine man, who sexually abused his victim under guise of treatment, violated § 2242(1). The medicine man told his victim that her difficulties sleeping and eating would not abate unless she allowed him to remove an object inside her groin area. Id. at . Because the victim would not have submitted to this abuse “but for the physical and spiritual consequences she feared would occur if she did not submit to his treatment,” the panel determined that the medicine man had placed his victim in fear within the meaning of § 2242(1). Id. These cases confirm our view that Mr. Fish violated § 2242(1) even if he did not place his nephew in fear of bodily injury. Some types of threatened harm may be too trivial to satisfy § 2242(1) (and hence too trivial to invoke the cross- -7- reference in USSG § 2G1.1), but the harm to a 13-year-old from being stranded far from home is hardly trivial.