Opinion ID: 1042115
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Severity of the Sentence at Issue

Text: With the gravity of Reingold’s offense thus weighing heavily in the balance, we consider whether a congressionally mandated five-year minimum sentence is grossly disproportionate to the crime. The question requires no extended discussion. 26 As has long been recognized, “it is difficult, if not impossible to halt” the sexual exploitation and abuse of minors by pursuing only the producers of child pornography. New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. at 759–60. Thus, the Supreme Court has acknowledged that “[t]he most expeditious if not the only practical method of law enforcement may be to dry up the market for this material by imposing severe criminal penalties” on all persons in the distribution chain. Id. at 760 (emphasis added). With precisely this objective in mind, see H.R. Conf. Rep. 108-66, at  (2003), reprinted in 2003 U.S.C.C.A.N. 683 (quoting New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. at 760), Congress, in 2003, established a graduated sentencing regime for crimes involving child pornography, with any knowing receipt or distribution of child pornography transmitted in interstate or foreign commerce punishable by a prison term of “not less than five years and not more than 20 years” in prison. 18 U.S.C. § 2252(b)(1).15 The question on this appeal is not whether we would ourselves have made that precise policy decision if charged with legislative responsibility. In our judicial capacity, we conclude simply that no inference of “gross disproportionality” can be drawn from Congress’s enactment of a five-year minimum sentence for as serious a felony crime as the distribution of child pornography. See Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. at 999 (Kennedy, J., concurring) 15 Pursuant to this graduated scheme, simple possession of child pornography carries no mandatory minimum sentence and a possible maximum of “not more than 10 years.” 18 U.S.C. § 2252(b)(2). Meanwhile, the production of child pornography in interstate commerce or the publication of an “advertisement seeking or offering . . . to receive, exchange, buy, produce, display, distribute, or reproduce” such child pornography is punishable by a prison term of “not less than 15 years nor more than 30 years.” Id. § 2251(d), (e). The penalties for each of these proscribed activities are increased for defendants with prior child pornography convictions. See id. §§ 2251(e), 2252(b)(1)–(2). 27 (emphasizing “substantial deference” that reviewing courts owe legislature’s “broad authority . . . in determining the types and limits of punishments for crimes” (internal quotation marks omitted)). In making that determination, we need not look beyond the depicted sexual exploitation of an eight-year old on the distributed video to conclude that the crime of conviction here is a more serious offense than the golf club and videotape thefts in Ewing and Lockyer, for which the Supreme Court upheld prison sentences of 25 years to life. To be sure, those sentences were informed by the defendants’ prior criminal records. Nevertheless, a large number of federal felony crimes carry the possibility of five-year prison terms for first time offenders.16 In such circumstances, we can hardly infer gross disproportionality from Congress’s decision to apply such a punishment to a felony crime presenting the serious harms associated with the distribution of child pornography. 16 See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 81 (providing for sentence up to 25 years for arson); id. § 115(b)(1)(B)(ii)–(iv) (providing for sentence up to 10 years for physical assault on federal official, with possible higher sentences depending on degree of injury); id. § 201 (providing for sentence up to 15 years for bribery); id. § 371 (providing for sentence up to five years for conspiracy); id. § 471 (providing for sentence up to 20 years for forgery of United States securities); id. § 545 (providing for sentence up to 20 years for smuggling); id. § 659 (providing for sentence up to 10 years for theft of goods in interstate commerce); id. § 892 (providing for sentence up to 20 years for making an extortionate extension of credit); id. § 924(c)(1) (providing for mandatory consecutive sentence of five years for carrying firearm during crime of violence or drug trafficking, with possible enhancements for how gun was used, type of firearm, and criminal record); id. § 1001 (providing for sentence up to five years for making false statement to federal official); id. § 1341 (providing for sentence up to 20 years for mail fraud); id. § 1542 (providing for sentence up to 10 years for passport fraud); id. § 1621 (providing for sentence up to five years for perjury); id. § 1956 (providing for sentence up to 20 years for money laundering). 28 No different conclusion is warranted because Congress mandated a minimum five-year sentence rather than leaving the possibility of such a punishment to the discretion of the sentencing judge. As the Supreme Court observed in Harmelin v. Michigan, the legislature’s “‘power to define criminal punishments without giving the courts any sentencing discretion’” is “beyond question.” 501 U.S. at 1006 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (quoting Chapman v. United States, 500 U.S. 453, 467 (1991)); see id. at 999 (recognizing that “competing theories of mandatory and discretionary sentencing have been in varying degrees of ascendancy or decline since the beginning of the Republic”). Precisely because statutorily mandated sentences represent not the judgment of a single judge but “the collective wisdom of the . . . Legislature and, as a consequence, the . . . citizenry,” in Harmelin the Court accorded great deference to a state legislature’s policy decision to mandate life sentences for persons who possessed more than 650 grams (approximately a pound and a half) of cocaine. Id. at 1006. Indeed, the Court there noted that it had “never invalidated a penalty mandated by a legislature based only on the length of sentence, and, especially with a crime as severe as [drug possession], we should do so only in the most extreme circumstance.” Id. This case does not present that extreme circumstance. The crime here at issue is as harmful as that in Harmelin, while the challenged five-year minimum is far less “severe and unforgiving” than the life sentence upheld in that case. Id. at 1008. Indeed, here Congress did not mandate a single sentence for all persons who distribute child pornography, nor set a maximum sentence that was the harshest term of incarceration permitted by law. See generally Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. at 2467–68. Rather, it provided a sentencing range 29 of “not less than 5 years and not more than 20 years” for the distribution of child pornography. 18 U.S.C. § 2252(b)(1). To the extent every sentence is a function of both the crime committed and the character of the defendant who committed it, Congress decided only that the distribution of child pornography was a sufficiently serious crime as to require at least a five-year sentence even for the most sympathetic defendant. But having set this floor, Congress then left it entirely to district courts to assess the particulars of the crime and the character of the defendant to determine whether some other sentence, between the five-year minimum and twenty-year maximum, might be warranted to serve the interests of justice. In this respect it afforded more “mechanisms for consideration of individual circumstances” in child pornography distribution cases than were available for drug trafficking in Harmelin. Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. at 1008 (Kennedy, J., concurring); see id. (noting that “[p]rosecutorial discretion before sentence and executive or legislative clemency afterwards provide means for the State to avert or correct unjust sentences”). Nor does Reingold’s immaturity give rise to an inference of gross disproportionality. An adult defendant’s immaturity may mitigate his moral culpability, but it does not reduce the harmful effects of his crime, which, as we have explained, are properly viewed as quite serious in cases of distribution of child pornography. Indeed, where the sentence at issue for such a serious crime is a minimum prison term of five years, the punishment is not so severe as to permit us to infer gross disproportionality from Congress’s decision to mandate its imposition on all adult defendants, without regard to their relative maturity. See generally Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. at 2460 (prohibiting mandatory life imprisonment without 30 parole only for juvenile, not adult, offenders); United States v. Merchant, No. 12-12957, 2013 WL 461218, at  (11th Cir. Feb. 7, 2013) (rejecting argument that 25-year-old defendant’s lack of sophistication, limited life experience, and amenability to treatment rendered 17.5-year sentence for distribution of large quantity of child pornography grossly disproportionate); cf. United States v. Moore, 643 F.3d 451, 454 (6th Cir. 2011) (rejecting claim that imposition of 15-year mandatory minimum sentence on four-time felon convicted of carrying firearm was grossly disproportionate in light of defendant’s diminished mental capacity). We nevertheless reiterate the point we made earlier: the district court may, of course, take the defendant’s immaturity into account in deciding where within the prescribed statutory range to sentence Reingold. See 18 U.S.C. §§ 3553(a), 3661; see also United States v. Moore, 643 F.3d at 455 (noting district court’s consideration of defendant’s reduced mental capacity in imposing sentence at very bottom of Guidelines range); United States v. Stern, 590 F. Supp. 2d 945, 953 (N.D. Ohio 2008) (concluding that fact that defendant began downloading child pornography at 14 “weigh[ed] heavily in favor of a deviation [from Guidelines range] under § 3553(a)”); cf. United States v. Wachowiak, 412 F. Supp. 2d 958, 964 (E.D. Wis. 2006) (imposing 70month sentence on defendant subject to mandatory minimum sentence of five years with applicable Guidelines range of 121 to 151 months’ imprisonment in light of various mitigating factors). But it cannot rely on Reingold’s relative immaturity to hold a five-year minimum sentence for the distribution of child pornography to be cruel and unusual punishment. Our conclusion that imposition of the five-year mandatory minimum sentence in this case does not give rise to an inference of gross disproportionality finds further support in our 31 own precedent. In United States v. Ramos, 685 F.3d 120 (2d Cir. 2012), a case in which a recidivist defendant convicted of receiving and possessing child pornography faced a 15-year minimum sentence, we easily rejected an Eighth Amendment challenge to that higher minimum, noting that it was well below the defendant’s Guidelines range and that “‘[l]engthy prison sentences . . . do not violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment when based on proper application of the Sentencing Guidelines or statutorily mandated . . . terms,’” id. at 134 n.11 (quoting United States v. Yousef, 327 F.3d 56, 163 (2d Cir. 2003)) (second and third alterations in Ramos). Our sister circuits have similarly rejected Eighth Amendment challenges to mandatory minimum sentences in child pornography or exploitation cases. See United States v. Hart, 635 F.3d 850, 859 (6th Cir. 2011) (upholding 15-year mandatory minimum under 18 U.S.C. § 2251 for persuading minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for purpose of producing visual depictions, and noting same ruling with respect to 10-year mandatory minimum for enticing minor into sexual relations in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2422(b) and 2251); United States v. Nagel, 559 F.3d 756, 762 (7th Cir. 2009) (holding 10-year mandatory minimum sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 2422(b) not grossly disproportionate to crime of attempting to entice minor to engage in criminal sexual act); United States v. Malloy, 568 F.3d 166, 180 & n.14 (4th Cir. 2009) (upholding 15-year mandatory minimum sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 2251); United States v. Gross, 437 F.3d 691, 695 (7th Cir. 2006) (concluding that 15-year mandatory minimum sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(b)(1) for distribution of child pornography by defendant who was former victim and perpetrator of child sexual abuse was 32 not grossly disproportionate to crime in light of high bar Supreme Court has set for such claims, seriousness of crime, and defendant’s prior record); United States v. MacEwan, 445 F.3d 237, 250 (3d Cir. 2006) (rejecting gross disproportionality challenge to 15-year minimum sentence mandated by 18 U.S.C. § 2252(a)(2)(B), (b)(1) for repeat offender convicted of receipt of child pornography); see also United States v. Dwinells, 508 F.3d 63, 69 (1st Cir. 2007) (rejecting Eighth Amendment challenge to mandatory minimum sentence for attempting to persuade, induce, entice, or coerce minor to engage in criminal sexual activity in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2242(b), noting that “it is not the proper function of the courts to act as super-legislatures, passing judgment upon Congress’s penological determinations”). In sum, the application of a mandatory five-year sentence to the distribution crime of conviction in this particular case does not give rise to an inference of gross disproportionality suggestive of cruel and unusual punishment. Thus, we need not engage in any sentencing comparison to determine, as we do here, that the district court erred in concluding that the Eighth Amendment barred the application of a five-year mandatory minimum sentence in this case. Accordingly, we remand the case for the district court to vacate its original sentence and to resentence Reingold consistent with the statutory mandate. D. Calculation of the Applicable Guidelines Range The United States submits that the district court erred in failing to apply certain Sentencing Guidelines enhancements to the calculation of Reingold’s applicable Guidelines range. Specifically, it contends that enhancements were warranted for (1) Reingold’s 33 engagement in a pattern of sexual abuse or exploitation of a minor, see U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(b)(5); (2) the use of a computer to commit the crime of conviction, see id. § 2G2.2(b)(6); and (3) the distribution of child pornography, see id. § 2G2.2(b)(3)(F). Reingold responds that the district court correctly declined to apply these enhancements, but asserts that, if there was error, it was necessarily harmless because “the record is abundantly clear that Judge Weinstein would have imposed the same sentence regardless of the recommended guideline range.” Appellee’s Br. 43. Our identification of a Guidelines calculation error as “harmless” allows us to uphold an otherwise valid sentence and to avoid vacatur and remand where it is clear that the district court would impose the same sentence in any event. See United States v. Jass, 569 F.3d 47, 68 (2d Cir. 2009). In this case, however, we cannot avoid remand and resentencing because we have identified a non-Guidelines sentencing error, i.e., the district court’s refusal to impose a mandatory five-year minimum sentence based on an erroneous Eighth Amendment determination. Thus, on remand, the district court will not be able to impose the same sentence. We recognize that the district court may well choose on remand to impose a non-Guidelines sentence. Nevertheless, “we have indicated that a correct Guidelines calculation must normally precede [such a] decision.” United States v. Rodriguez, 587 F.3d 573, 584 (2d Cir. 2009). Accordingly, we proceed to consider the government’s Guidelines calculation challenge. In doing so, we interpret relevant Guidelines provisions de novo, but we defer to the district court’s findings of facts pertinent to the Guidelines absent clear error. See United States v. Broxmeyer, 699 F.3d 265, 281 (2d Cir. 2012). 34
Guideline § 2G2.2, which applies to defendants convicted of child pornography crimes pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2252, provides for a five-level enhancement in offense level “[i]f the defendant engaged in a pattern of activity involving the sexual abuse or exploitation of a minor.” U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(b)(5). This Guideline attempts to assess both a defendant’s risk of recidivism and the potential harm to others that such recidivism could present. See United States v. Laraneta, 700 F.3d 983, 987 (7th Cir. 2012) (observing that, with respect to § 2G2.2(b)(5), defendant’s “[o]ther acts of sexual predation . . . have predictive significance with regard to the likelihood of recidivism, . . .[a] relevant consideration in deciding how long a defendant should be incapacitated (by being imprisoned) from committing further crimes”). The Probation Department initially recommended, and the government urged, that this five-level enhancement be applied to Reingold based on his admitted three sexual contacts with his half-sister. The district court disagreed, finding § 2G2.2(b)(5) inapplicable because Reingold was a minor when the first two contacts with his sister occurred. Further, it observed that the acts were attributable largely to a lack of “proper parental supervision,” and were so lacking in temporal proximity as to appear “aberrant.” May 16, 2011 Sentencing Tr. 15:24–16:1. These circumstances do not, in fact, make § 2G2.2(b)(5) inapplicable here. The “pattern of activity involving the sexual abuse or exploitation of a minor” required to warrant a § 2G2.2(b)(5) enhancement is specifically defined in the Guideline’s application notes to mean “any combination of two or more separate instances of the sexual abuse or sexual exploitation of a minor by the defendant, whether or not the abuse or exploitation (A) occurred during the course of the offense; (B) involved the same minor; or (C) resulted 35 in a conviction for such conduct.” U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2 cmt. n.1. The same application note defines “sexual abuse or exploitation” to mean (A) conduct described in 18 U.S.C. § 2241, § 2242, § 2243, § 2251(a)–(c), § 2251(d)(1)(B), § 2251A, § 2260(b), § 2421, § 2422, or § 2423; (B) an offense under state law, that would have been an offense under any such section if the offense had occurred within the special maritime or territorial jurisdiction of the United States; or (C) an attempt or conspiracy to commit any of the offenses under subdivisions (A) or (B). Id. The note also specifically excludes from the definition of “sexual abuse or exploitation” the “possession, accessing with intent to view, receipt, or trafficking in material relating to the sexual abuse or exploitation of a minor.” Id. Read together, these definitions signal that § 2G2.2(b)(5) is narrow in one respect and expansive in another. The specifically referenced federal statutes cabin the conduct that qualifies as “sexual abuse or exploitation” for purposes of a § 2G2.2(b)(5) enhancement. At the same time, the expansive word “any” in the phrase “any combination of two or more separate instances of the sexual abuse or sexual exploitation of a minor by the defendant” signals that any conduct described within one of the specified statutes is properly considered in making a § 2G2.2(b)(5) assessment and that nothing more than two separate instances of such conduct is required to demonstrate the requisite pattern. Thus, the lack of temporal proximity in Reingold’s sexual contacts with his sister was not a permissible ground for refusing to apply a § 2G2.2(b)(5) enhancement. See generally United States v. Salim, 549 F.3d 67, 79 (2d Cir. 2008) (holding it legal error to impose additional requirement beyond plain language of Guideline). In so holding, we join our sister circuits, which have uniformly concluded that no temporal proximity among acts of sexual 36 abuse or exploitation is required to satisfy the pattern requirement of § 2G2.2(b)(5). See, e.g., United States v. Woodard, 694 F.3d 950, 953–54 (8th Cir. 2012); United States v. Clark, 685 F.3d 72, 79 (1st Cir. 2012); United States v. McGarity, 669 F.3d 1218, 1260 (11th Cir. 2012); United States v. Bacon, 646 F.3d 218, 221 (5th Cir. 2011); United States v. Olfano, 503 F.3d 240, 243 (3d Cir. 2007); United States v. Garner, 490 F.3d 739, 743 (9th Cir. 2007); United States v. Gawthrop, 310 F.3d 405, 414 (6th Cir. 2002); United States v. Lovaas, 241 F.3d 900, 904 (7th Cir. 2001). Nor can § 2G2.2(b)(5) and its application notes be construed to exclude conduct satisfying its definition of sexual abuse and exploitation from pattern consideration based on mitigating circumstances.17 As noted, the Guideline strictly limits the activities qualifying as sexual abuse and exploitation, but where conduct falls within that narrowly defined sphere, “any combination of two or more instances” of such abuse or exploitation—not any combination unexplained by mitigating circumstances—qualifies as a “pattern” warranting an enhancement. That mitigating circumstances are not relevant to a particular Guideline’s applicability does not, however, mean that a district court may not properly rely on such circumstances either in deciding where within the applicable Guidelines range to sentence a defendant or in deciding to sentence a defendant to a non-Guidelines sentence. 17 Even if inadequate parental supervision might somehow have contributed to Reingold’s first sexual contact with his sister, when the 15-year-old boy and his eight-yearold sister shared a bed on a family vacation, it is not apparent how it mitigates the second and third contacts absent a conclusion that no responsible parent would leave a teenage boy alone with his pre-pubescent sister, which hardly seems warranted. We need not pursue this essentially factual question further, however, in light of our legal conclusion that the language of § 2G2.2(b)(5) provides for any conduct satisfying its limited definition of sexual abuse and exploitation to be considered, with any two separate instances of such conduct satisfying the pattern requirement for an enhancement. 37 We further conclude that the district court erred in excluding from § 2G2.2(b)(5) consideration of Reingold’s first two sexual contacts with his half-sister on the ground that defendant was then himself a minor. This court has not previously had occasion to consider whether acts of sexual abuse or exploitation of a minor by a minor can support a § 2G2.2(b)(5) enhancement. We have however, considered that question in similar circumstances and held that they can. See United States v. Phillips, 431 F.3d 86, 90–93 (2d Cir. 2005). In Phillips, a defendant convicted of sexually exploiting a minor in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) and (b) argued that the “§ 4B1.5(b) enhancement for a pattern of prohibited sexual behavior does not apply to unadjudicated conduct perpetrated by an adolescent because neither the Guidelines nor the Application Notes explicitly say that it does.” Id. at 90. In rejecting this argument, we noted that one of the statutes defining conduct supporting the enhancement, 18 U.S.C. § 2243,18 does not “limit[] its coverage to violators over the age of eighteen,” thus making “sexual abuse of a minor by a minor . . . prohibited conduct constituting an offense under federal law.” Id. at 91. We further observed that, by contrast to other Guidelines, which condition enhancements on whether relevant offenses were adult 18 18 U.S.C. § 2243 makes it a felony for any person: in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States or in a Federal prison, . . . knowingly [to] engage[] in a sexual act with another person who– (1) has attained the age of 12 years but has not attained the age of 16 years; and (2) is at least four years younger than the person so engaging; or attempts to do so. . . . Id. § 2243(a). 38 convictions, § 4B1.5(b) contained no comparable language “placing constraints on the use of a conviction based on the defendant’s age.” Id. at 93; see U.S.S.G. §§ 4A1.1, 4B1.1. Accordingly, we concluded that, under § 4B1.5(b), “the district court [was] permitted to take into account sexually exploitive conduct that occurred when the defendant was himself a juvenile.” United States v. Phillips, 431 F.3d at 93. The same reasoning applies to § 2G2.2(b)(5). Among the statutes whose conduct describes the sexual abuse or exploitation of a minor relevant to this Guideline is 18 U.S.C. § 2241(c), which makes it a crime knowingly to engage “in a sexual act with another person who has not attained the age of 12” within the jurisdiction of the United States. Like § 2243, § 2241(c) does not limit its coverage to offenders over the age of 18. Nor does any language in § 2G2.2(b)(5) or its application notes require consideration of a defendant’s age at the time of past instances of sexual abuse or exploitation. In the absence of such language, and consistent with our decision in Phillips, we here conclude that sexual abuse or exploitation of a minor undertaken by a defendant who was a juvenile at the time of the incident is properly considered in applying the § 2G2.2(b)(5) pattern enhancement. The two of our sister circuits to have considered this question have reached the same conclusion. See United States v. Woodard, 694 F.3d at 953 [8th Cir.]; United States v. Olfano, 503 F.3d at 243 [3d Cir.]. We therefore conclude that the district court erred in relying on Reingold’s minority, lack of temporal proximity, and inadequate supervision as grounds not to consider his contacts with his sister as a basis for a § 2G2.2(b)(5) enhancement in this case. In rejecting these grounds for decision, we do not, however, conclude that Reingold warrants a 39 § 2G2.2(b)(5) enhancement. That depends on whether his sexual contacts with his sister qualify as “sexual abuse or exploitation,” a factual finding that the district court never made. As we have already observed, “sexual abuse or exploitation,” as used in § 2G2.2(b)(5), means only such conduct as is described in certain criminal statutes. The definition of a “sexual act” for purposes of § 2241(c), which appears to be the relevant statute here, derives from 18 U.S.C. § 2246(2)(D), which defines the phrase to mean, inter alia, “the intentional touching, not through the clothing, of the genitalia of another person who has not attained the age of 16 years with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, degrade, or arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.” Of Reingold’s three sexual contacts with his sister, the last—when he was 18 and she was 11—appears plainly to qualify. Reingold admitted that on that occasion, he had his sister “manually stimulate his penis, while he rubbed her breasts and manually stimulated her vagina, both over and under her panties,” PSR ¶ 11, and “coached her on how to perform oral sex on him” and performed oral sex on her, id. ¶ 13. The siblings’ first encounter might also qualify in that Reingold admitted that on that first occasion, when he was 15 and his sister eight, he had her sister manually stimulate his penis while he touched the girl’s “privates, under her clothing.” Id. Less clear is whether the second encounter qualifies as a sexual act. On that occasion, when Reingold was 16 and his sister nine, he again had his sister manually stimulate his penis, but Reingold admitted rubbing her vagina only over her underpants. We leave it to the district court to resolve these open factual questions as to which of Reingold’s contacts involved “a sexual act.” 40 If, however, the facts show that on two or more occasions Reingold engaged his sister, a girl then younger than twelve, in sexual acts as defined by federal law, those two separate instances of sexual abuse or exploitation would warrant a five-level enhancement to his Guidelines offense level calculation pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(b)(5).
Guideline § 2G2.2(b)(6) provides for a two-level enhancement “[i]f the offense involved the use of a computer.” The district court declined to apply the enhancement in this case, finding it to constitute impermissible “double counting.” United States v. C.R., 792 F. Supp. 2d at 512. That conclusion was unwarranted in light of United States v. Johnson, 221 F.3d 83, 99 (2d Cir. 2000), in which we specifically rejected a double-counting challenge to the application of a § 2G2.2(b)(6) enhancement. As Johnson observed, the use of a computer is not essential to the act of distributing child pornography. A person “can traffic in child pornography without using a computer much like one could commit a robbery without the use of a gun.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, the enhancement does not result in double counting because it does not “increase a defendant’s sentence to reflect the kind of harm that has already been fully accounted for” by the base offense level. United States v. Volpe, 224 F.3d 72, 76 (2d Cir. 2000) (internal quotation marks omitted). This conclusion is reinforced by our earlier observation that the digital revolution, which may be responsible for more child pornography crimes’ being committed by computer, has aggravated rather than mitigated the harms associated with such crime. See supra at Part II.C.2.a. By making it easier to retrieve and distribute child pornography, computers have expanded the market for child pornography, which in turn fuels a greater demand for a 41 product that can only be produced by abusing and exploiting children. See generally United States v. Lewis, 605 F.3d at 403. Moreover, once child pornography is circulated by computer, it becomes almost impossible to remove or destroy. In such circumstances, it was hardly unreasonable, much less double counting, for the Sentencing Commission to conclude that the base offense level applicable to all distributors of child pornography—even those who share items non-electronically—should be enhanced for persons who commit the crime by using a computer. Reingold submits that since Johnson this court has expressed reservations about the § 2G2.2(b)(6) enhancement because, now that so many child pornography crimes are committed by computer, the enhancement applies “in virtually every case” so as to have “the flavor” of double counting. United States v. Tutty, 612 F.3d 128, 132 (2d Cir. 2010); see United States v. Dorvee, 616 F.3d 174, 186 (2d Cir. 2010).19 In neither case, however, did we reverse Johnson or hold that it would be impermissible double counting to apply a § 2G2.2(b)(6) enhancement when the distribution of child pornography is effected by computer. Rather, the noted reservations informed the observation that substantive reasonableness concerns could arise where courts imposed sentences near the statutory maximum as a result of Guidelines enhancements that now seemed to apply “in virtually every case.” United States v. Tutty, 612 F.3d at 132. Here, we do not review the substantive reasonableness of a sentence at the top of the 19 Neither case had occasion to consider whether the reason so many of the same enhancements apply in the child pornography cases we review is that the government, confronting an epidemic of such crimes with limited resources, has focused its prosecutorial efforts on those cases presenting these aggravating factors. 42 statutory range. We consider only whether the district court erred in concluding that it would be impermissible double counting to apply a computer use enhancement to the calculation of Reingold’s Guidelines. In light of Johnson, we conclude that the district court did so err. On remand, the district court should apply this enhancement to its calculation of Reingold’s recommended Guidelines range.
In calculating Reingold’s Guidelines range, the district court further declined to apply the two-level enhancement for distribution provided in U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(b)(3)(F). The district court found that the base offense level for § 2G2.2(a)(2) already accounted for the harms attributable to distribution, making any enhancement “a form of double counting.” May 16, 2011 Sentencing Tr. 13:8–10. Moreover, it found that Reingold’s primary objective in using the GigaTribe file sharing program was to receive child pornography rather than to distribute it to others. Neither ground makes the distribution enhancement inapplicable to this case. a. A § 2G2.2 Distribution Enhancement Does Not Constitute Double Counting in This Case The district court concluded that because distribution was a necessary element of Reingold’s crime of conviction, any harm associated with distribution was necessarily fully accounted for in the base offense level of his Guideline. See United States v. Watkins, 667 F.3d 254, 261 (2d Cir. 2012) (stating that impermissible double counting occurs when Guidelines enhancement is applied to reflect harm already “fully accounted for by another 43 part of the guidelines” (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted)). The conclusion is unwarranted. First, distribution need not be present in every conviction under the statute at issue. Section 2252(a)(2) proscribes the knowing receipt or distribution of child pornography. See United States v. Salim, 549 F.3d at 76 (holding that no double counting concern arises where Guidelines enhance for “additional factor that will not be present in every conviction under the statute” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Second, neither the applicable Guideline, U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2, nor the base offense level dictated by that Guideline for this case, is limited to distribution crimes. Guideline § 2G2.2 sweeps broadly to address a wide range of criminal conduct occurring after child pornography has been produced. As that Guideline’s title indicates, such conduct includes (1) “Trafficking,” (2) “Receiving,” (3) “Transporting,” (4) “Shipping,” (5) “Soliciting,” and (6) “Advertising Material Involving the Sexual Exploitation of a Minor,” as well as (7) “Possessing” such material, both with and without intent to distribute.20 To assist sentencing judges in distinguishing among such varied crimes and assessing their severity in particular cases, § 2G2.2 draws various distinctions. To begin, the Guideline draws a gross distinction between crimes of conviction implicating only simple possession of child pornography21 and all other covered crimes, assigning a base offense level of 18 to 20 Guideline § 2G2.2 applies to defendants convicted of the myriad offenses proscribed by 18 U.S.C. §§ 1466A, 2251(d)(1)(A), 2252, 2252A(a) and (b), and 2260(b). See United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual, Apppendix A. 21 This first set also includes production and distribution crimes involving adapted or modified depictions of a minor. See 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(7). 44 the former, see U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(a)(1), and a base offense level of 22 to the latter, see id. § 2G2.2(a)(2). Within the latter set—which includes the receipt, solicitation, transportation, and advertisement of child pornography, as well as its sale or distribution—the Guideline provides for the base offense level to be reduced two levels in cases where “the defendant’s conduct was limited to the receipt or solicitation” of child pornography, and “the defendant did not intend to traffic, or distribute, in such material.” Id. § 2G2.2(b)(1). At the same time, however, the Guideline provides for an enhancement to the base offense level for offenses that involved the distribution of child pornography. See id. § 2G2.2(b)(3). Specifically, it dictates a two-level enhancement whenever an offense involved distribution, see id. § 2G2.2(b)(3)(F), with the possibility of greater enhancements if the distribution was for pecuniary or other tangible gain, see id. § 2G2.2(b)(3)(A)–(B), or to a minor, see id. § 2G2.2(b)(3)(C)–(E). This structure cannot be understood to address the harm associated with the distribution of child pornography in a base offense level of 22 that applies equally to a variety of offenses, some involving distribution and others not. Rather, § 2G2.2 is structured so that the range of harms associated with distribution can be addressed through various enhancements. Indeed, that conclusion has been so obvious to those of our sister circuits to have considered the question that they have employed little discussion to reject double counting challenges to the application of a § 2G2.2(b)(3)(F) enhancement to defendants convicted of distribution offenses. See United States v. Chiaradio, 684 F.3d 265, 283 (1st Cir. 2012) (identifying “absolutely no basis” for inferring that distribution enhancement did not apply to defendant convicted of distribution crime); United States v. Frakes, 402 45 F. App’x 332, 335–36 (10th Cir. 2010) (“Rather than forbidding double-counting, § 2G2.2 expressly allows a two-level enhancement for distribution,” such that a minimum two-point enhancement “will always apply” to defendants convicted of distribution offenses (emphasis in original)). We agree that a minimum two-level enhancement for distribution applies to the calculation of Reingold’s Guidelines, and we conclude that the district court erred as a matter of law in holding that such an enhancement constituted impermissible double counting. b. Reingold’s Offense Involved Distribution No different conclusion is warranted because the district court concluded that Reingold’s primary purpose in committing the distribution offense of conviction was to receive rather than to distribute child pornography. The application notes to § 2G2.2 define “distribution” to mean any act, including possession with intent to distribute, production, transmission, advertisement, and transportation, related to the transfer of material involving the sexual exploitation of a minor. Accordingly, distribution includes posting material involving the sexual exploitation of a minor on a website for public viewing but does not include the mere solicitation of such material by a defendant. U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2 cmt. n.1 (emphasis added). Use of the word “any” to modify “act” signals that the phrase should be construed broadly. Similarly, use of the word “including” in the first sentence and “includes” in the second sentence signals that the cited acts of distribution are illustrative rather than exhaustive. See United States v. Ramos, 695 F.3d 1035, 1040 (10th Cir. 2012) (construing “including” in § 2G2.2 application note’s definition of 46 distribution as “non-exhaustive”). Nothing in the definition suggests that application of a § 2G2.2(b)(3) enhancement depends on distribution being a defendant’s primary intent in committing the offense of conviction. Indeed, a number of our sister circuits have construed the enhancement to apply without regard to a defendant’s intent as long as the offense of conviction involved distribution. See United States v. Hayden, No. 12-11346, 2013 WL 781804, at  (11th Cir. Mar. 4, 2013) (observing that “neither § 2G2.2(b)(3)(F) nor the application notes impose an intent requirement” in upholding district court’s application of enhancement); United States v. Ramos, 695 F.3d at 1041 [10th Cir.] (holding that “intent to distribute is not required for act to qualify as ‘distribution’ under § 2G2.2(b)” (emphasis in original)). Here, even if Reingold’s primary intent in joining GigaTribe was “not to distribute but more to just receive” child pornography, May 10, 2011 Sentencing Tr. 16:10–11, the record makes plain that he both knew from the start that distribution was a necessary condition of receipt, see id. at 16:9, 19–22 (admitting that “in order to receive” materials, GigaTribe “requires you to share with other people”), and, with that knowledge, took deliberate and purposeful actions to effect that distribution, see generally United States v. Kelly, 147 F.3d 172, 177 (2d Cir. 1998) (approving definition of “intentionally” that requires defendant to have “acted deliberately and purposefully”). A federal agent, discussing how GigaTribe worked, explained that Reingold had to “specifically pick which folders or files he want[ed] to share”; persons on Reingold’s “buddy list” could then share “not his whole computer, [but] just the [files] that he selected.” May 10, 2011 Sentencing Tr. 12:24–25, 14:13–14. Indeed, Reingold “admitted that he shared his child pornography folders with an estimated 10 to 20 47 GigaTribe users on his invited buddy list.” PSR ¶ 9. Such conduct plainly supports defendant’s conviction for distributing child pornography as well as application of the § 2G2.2(b)(3)(F) enhancement. As we recently stated in a summary order upholding such an enhancement, “knowingly placing child pornography files in a shared folder on a peer-to-peer file-sharing network constitutes distribution under U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2, even if no one actually obtains an image from the folder.” United States v. Farney, 513 F. App’x 114, 116 (2d Cir. 2013). Our sister circuits agree. See United States v. Conner, No. 12-3210, 2013 WL 1490109, at  (6th Cir. Apr. 11, 2013) (holding that “knowing use of [file-sharing service], much like the posting of a file on a website, is sufficient to trigger section 2B2.2(b)(3)(F)’s two-level enhancement”); United States v. Ramos, 695 F.3d at 1041 [10th Cir.] (concluding that when “individual uses a peer-to-peer network file-sharing program with knowledge that the program will deposit downloaded child-pornography files into a shared folder accessible to other users—e.g., rendering files only a mouse-click away—then that person has engaged in an act related to the transfer of child pornography” warranting § 2G2.2(b)(3)(F) enhancement); United States v. Glassgow, 682 F.3d 1107, 1110 (8th Cir. 2012) (holding § 2G2.2(b)(3)(F) enhancement warranted where, inter alia, defendant “knowingly made files available for distribution”); United States v. Spriggs, 666 F.3d 1284, 1287 (11th Cir. 2012) (stating that “[w]hen the user knowingly makes the files accessible to others, the distribution is complete”); United States v. Layton, 564 F.3d 330, 335 (4th Cir. 2009) (holding that defendant who “knowingly us[es] a file-sharing program that allows others to access child pornography files” commits the transfer act necessary to warrant § 2G2.2(b)(3)(F) 48 enhancement); United States v. Carani, 492 F.3d 867, 876 (7th Cir. 2007) (concluding that “notion” that defendant “could knowingly make his child pornography available for others to access and download without this qualifying as ‘distribution’ does not square with the plain meaning of the word”). We here reiterate as controlling our summary conclusion in Farney, and we clarify that it applies without regard to whether the defendant’s primary purpose in placing child pornography files in a file-sharing program was to receive or to distribute child pornography. Thus, on remand, the district court should recalculate Reingold’s Guidelines before resentencing, applying enhancements under U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2(b)(3)(F), (b)(5), and (b)(6), as warranted consistent with this opinion. While the district court is required correctly to calculate and fairly to consider the Guidelines, see 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(4), nothing in this opinion is intended to limit the district court’s discretion to consider a non-Guidelines sentence pursuant to United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220, 245 (2005).