Opinion ID: 771998
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sentence Enhancement Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. S 2251(d).

Text: 30 Galo's challenge to the district court's sentencing enhancement is more troubling. 18 U.S.C.S 2251(d) provides in relevant part: 31 Any individual who violates . . . this section shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not less than ten (10) years nor more than twenty (20) years, but if such person has one prior conviction under this chapter [18 U.S.C. S 2251 et seq.], . . . or under the laws of any State relating to the sexual exploitation of children, such person shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not less than fifteen (15) years nor more than thirty (30) years . . . . 32 Galo's enhancement is based upon two guilty pleas he entered in state court in 1990. In January of that year Galo's niece told New Kensington, Pennsylvania police that Galo had been sexually abusing her from her preschool years up to fifth grade. According to the niece, the abuse initially consisted of vaginal touching, but it progressed to oral sex and intercourse. The abuse stopped when the niece told her mother. However, she also told police that Galo had sexually abused her brothers. The police subsequently questioned her brothers, and they confirmed that Galo had also sexually abused them. 33 Galo's older nephew, then age 18, told police that Galo had been sexually abusing him for the past six years. The abuse consisted of oral and anal sex, and touching of each other's genitals. Galo's younger nephew, then age 16, told the police that Galo had sexually abused him at various times from the time he was 6 to the time he reached 13. That abuse also consisted of oral sex and touching of genitalia. 34 On February 16, 1990, Galo was charged in the Court of Common Pleas of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, with two counts of involuntary deviate sexual inter course, two counts of corruption of minors, two counts of endangering the welfare of children and four counts of indecent assault. 35 On March 16, 1991, Galo appeared before a state trial judge and pled guilty to corruption of minors, endangering the welfare of children and indecent assault. Charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse were dropped pursuant to a plea agreement. The court accepted the plea and sentenced Galo to one and one-half to three years imprisonment. When Galo was finally released from custody on that sentence he began his parole. As a condition of that parole he was required to complete a sexual offender program and he was prohibited from residing in a home where minors were present. He was on parole when he became involved with Sheila. 36 The district court relied upon the transcript of Galo's guilty plea hearing in state court, the elements of the state offenses he pled guilty to, and the relevant proof offered by the state in its prosecution of Galo, and determined that Galo's prior state conviction related to the sexual exploitation of children for purposes of an enhancement under S 2251(d). However, in reaching that conclusion, the court necessarily focused on Galo's conduct, as opposed to the elements of the offenses he was convicted of in state court. 4 37 Galo now argues that the district court incorrectly concluded that he had been convicted of violating state laws relating to the sexual exploitation of children, as required to enhance his sentence. He insists that the district court was required to follow a categorical approach in deciding whether the enhancement provisions of S 2251(d) applied. Under the categorical approach, the sentencing court can look only to the fact of conviction and the statutory definition of the prior offense. The court's analysis is not controlled by the conduct giving rise to the conviction. Taylor v. United States, 495 U.S. 575, 600-602(1990). 38 In Taylor, the defendant conditionally pled guilty to being a convicted felon-in-possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. S 922(g)(1). That plea subjected him to the sentencing enhancement contained in 18 U.S.C. S 924(e) which provides as follows: 39 (1) In the case of a person who violates section 922(g) of this title and has three previous convictions by any court . . . for a violent felony . . . such person shall be fined not more than $25,000 and imprisoned not less than fifteen years. . . . 40 (2) As used in this subsection-- 41 . . . . . 42 (B) the term `violent felony' means any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year . . . that-- 43 (i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; or 44 (ii) is burglary [or other specified offenses] or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another. 45 Id. at 578. Taylor conceded that his prior convictions for assault and robbery counted toward the enhancement because they involved the use of physical force against persons. However, he argued that the district court could not rely upon two burglary convictions in deciding if he qualified for an enhanced sentence under S 924(e). He insisted that under the law of the state where he was 46 convicted (Missouri), his convictions did not involve `conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.'  Id. at 579. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the enhancement based upon its conclusion that the word burglary in S 924(e)(2)(B)(ii) means burglary however a state chooses to define it. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 47 The issue before the Supreme Court was whether a sentencing court applying S 924(e) must look only to the statutory definitions of the prior offenses, or whether the court may consider other evidence concerning the defendant's prior crimes. 495 U.S. at 600. After carefully examining the legislative history, and noting that the text of the statute grounded the enhancement on prior convictions for specified crimes, the Court held that the enhancement focused the sentencing court's inquiry on the elements of the statute of conviction, not [on] the facts of each defendant's conduct. Id. With one narrow exception not relevant to our analysis the Court concluded: 48 the only plausible interpretation of S 924(e)(2)(B)(ii) is that, like the rest of the enhancement statute, it generally requires the trial court to look only to the fact of conviction and the statutory definition of the prior offense. 49 Id., at 602. The Court also noted that the practical difficulties and potential unfairness of a factual approach are daunting [because] [i]n all cases where the Government alleges that the defendant's actual conduct fit the generic definition of burglary, the trial court would have to determine what that conduct was. Id ., at 601. 50 Although a factual approach would be possible in some cases where the charging instrument disclosed the actual theories of the case as presented to the jury, it would often not be possible to discern the nature of a defendant's prior 51 conduct. Application of the enhancement in such instances would therefore result in inequitable treatment from state to state or even within a given jurisdiction based only upon the specificity of the charging instrument or the availability of the jury instructions, or trial transcript. Such difficulties are avoided where a sentencing court applying the S 924(e) enhancement looks only to the elements of the prior offense of conviction as defined by state law. 52 This categorical approach has not been limited to the enhancement under S 924(e). In Roussos v. Menifee, 122 F.3d 159, 162-63 (3d Cir. 1997) we relied, in part, on the Taylor rationale and held that the Bureau of Prisons had erred when considering enhancement factors and not focusing on the elements of the offense of conviction in construing convicted of a nonviolent offense for purposes of awarding a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. S 3621(e)(2)(B). 53 The language of the relevant statute here is even clearer than the text of the statutes involved in Taylor and Roussos. As noted above, S 2251(d) applies when an individual has one prior conviction . . . under the laws of any State relating to the sexual exploitation of children. As in Taylor, the language expressly refers to a conviction, not to conduct relating to the sexual exploitation of children. In order to uphold the enhancement here, we would have to read S 2251(d) as applying when the defendant has previously been convicted under the laws of any state based upon conduct relating to the sexual exploitation of children. The language of S 2251(d) does not fairly support that interpretation. 54 In his thoughtful dissent, Judge Garth reminds us that in United States v. Watkins, 54 F .3d 163 (3rd Cir. 1995), we noted that the enhancement contained in S 924(e) does allow a sentencing court to apply that enhancement based 55 upon a defendant's actual conduct in certain instances. See Dissent at 586. In Watkins we stated: 56 when the statutory definition of the prior offense is broad enough to permit conviction based on conduct that falls outside of the scope of S 924(e)(2)(B) [here, outside the scope of 18 U.S.C. S 2251(d)], it becomes necessary to look beyond the statute of conviction. Only in such cases may the sentencing court look to the facts of the particular case in order to determine whether the trier of fact necessarily found elements that would qualify the offense as a violent felony under S 924(e)(2)(B). 57 54 F.3d at 166. However, that pronouncement referred to the Supreme Court's discussion of situations where a state statute is so broad that it encompasses offenses that serve as predicates for enhancement under S 924(e), as well as offenses that do not. In Taylor, the Court held that the burglary enhancement contained in S 924(e) applied whenever a defendant had a prior conviction for a crime that had the same elements as generic bur glary, no matter how the crime was labeled under state law. Taylor, 495 U.S. at 599-600. Accordingly, the Court concluded that 58 a person has been convicted of burglary for purposes of a S 924(e) enhancement if he is convicted of any crime, regardless of its exact definition or label, having the basic elements of unlawful or unprivileged entry into, or remaining in, a building or structure, with intent to commit a crime. 59 Id. at 599. When a given state statute defined burglary more narrowly than generic burglary (such as not requiring the intent to commit a felony or a violent crime following entry) there was clearly no problem as the prior conviction must, by definition, include the elements of generic burglary. However, some states define burglary to include unprivileged entry of a vehicle. In such cases the prior conviction would not necessarily satisfy the elements of 60 generic burglary. However, in such a case, if the defendant had actually been convicted of entering a building, he/she would have committed a generic burglary even though the statute's definition included conduct that could not serve as an enhancement under S 924(e). The Court stated: 61 A few States' burglary statutes, . . . define burglary more broadly, e.g., by eliminating the requirement that the entry be unlawful, or by including places, such as automobiles and vending machines, other than buildings. . . . Also, there may be offenses under some States' laws that, while not called burglary, correspond in substantial part to generic burglary. . . .This question requires us to address a more general issue--whether the sentencing court in applying S 924(e) must look only to the statutory definitions of the prior offenses, or whether the court may consider other evidence concerning the defendant's prior crimes. The Courts of Appeals uniformly have held that S 924(e) mandates a formal categorical approach, looking only to the statutory definitions of the prior offenses, and not to the particular facts underlying those convictions. We find the reasoning of these cases persuasive. 62 Id. at 600 (citations omitted). 63 It was in this context that we made our pronouncement in Watkins. 64 Watkins argued that the prosecution's reliance upon documentary evidence to establish that his prior state convictions qualified as enhancements under S 924(e) failed to meet the government's burden of proof at sentencing. We rejected that argument because the uncontested facts in the presentence report established that Watkins' prior convictions were predicate offenses under S 924(e). We stated: 65 Here, the information provided in the presentence report enabled the district court to ascertain with certainty the statutes of conviction and the statutes of conviction encompass only conduct that falls within the scope of S 924(e)(2)(B)(i) and (ii). . . . Watkins is forced to argue for a per se rule that certified copies of the judgments of conviction are required in every case before a sentencing court may determine that the defendant's prior convictions are for violent felonies within the meaning of S 924(e)(2)(B). We find no persuasive justification for such an inflexible rule and decline to adopt it. 66 Watkins, 54 F.3d at 167-8 (emphasis added). 67 However, our discussion in Watkins can not be divorced from the focus of the Supreme Court's inquiry in Taylor. There, the Court had to discern what Congress intended when it amended the applicable statute in 1986. When S 924(e) was originally enacted in 1984 it included burglary as a predicate offense for enhancing a sentence of one convicted of violating 18 U.S.C. S 922(g)(1) (a felon in possession of a firearm). However , [b]urglary was defined in the statute itself as `any felony consisting of entering or remaining surreptitiously within a building that is property of another with intent to engage in conduct constituting a Federal or State offense.'  Taylor, 495 U.S. at 581. The current version of S 924(e) was enacted into law when Congress passed the Career Criminals Amendment Act of 1986. Id. at 577. Those amendments made three changes in the original 1984 enactment. This amendment...expanded the predicate offenses triggering the sentence enhancement from robbery or bur glary to a violent felony or a serious drug offense; it defined the term violent felony to include burglary; and it deleted the pre-existing definition of burglary. Id. 582. Thus, in Taylor, the Court had to examine the legislative history of the amendments to determine if Congress intended a substantive change in what constituted a predicate offense under S 924(e). The Court concluded that the omission did not mean that Congress intended to change the definition of burglary. 68 The legislative history as a whole suggests that the deletion of the 1984 definition of burglary may have been an inadvertent casualty of a complex drafting process. In any event, there is nothing in the history to show that Congress intended in 1986 to replace the 1984 generic definition of burglary with something entirely different. Although the omission of a pre-existing definition of a term often indicates Congress' intent to reject that definition, we draw no such inference here. 69 Id. at 589-90 (citations omitted). 70 Having established that a burglary, as originally defined, remained a predicate offense, the Court held that sentencing courts must adopt the categorical approach in determining if a state conviction for bur glary constituted a burglary for purposes of S 924(e). As noted above, when a given state statute includes conduct as burglary that would not constitute generic burglary, the sentencing court can only accomplish the required inquiry if it first determines if the prior conviction was tantamount to generic burglary as originally defined in S 924(e). Thus, in Watkins, we acknowledged that the sentencing court must look beyond the statute of conviction when a defendant has a prior conviction under a statute that labels conduct as a burglary that would traditionally not be defined as burglary (such as illegally entering of a vehicle with the intent to commit a crime). In that situation, the prior burglary conviction can only serve as a predicate offense under S 924(e) if the defendant's conduct constituted a generic burglary. Otherwise, there was no conviction for burglary under S 924(e). Accordingly, our decision in Watkins does not allow a sentencing court to impose an enhancement under S 2251(d) based on conduct that did not result in a conviction for a crime relating to sexual exploitation of children, and the dissent's reliance upon our language in Watkins is misplaced. 71 We are similarly unpersuaded by the dissent's reliance upon United States v. Sweeten, 933 F .2d 765, 769 (9th Cir.1991), and United States v. Barney. 955 F.2d 635 (10th Cir.1992). See dissent at 585-86. In Sweeten, the district court refused to count a prior conviction for bur glary of a habitation in Texas as a predicate offense under S 924(e) because Texas defined habitation to include vehicles. The sentencing court concluded that it was therefore not a conviction for  `burglary' in a generic sense under Taylor. Sweeten, 933 F.2d 767. The government appealed, and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed because the statute in question defined habitation to include vehicles. Accordingly, the statute was limited to such vehicles as trailers, campers, and mobile homes-- whose primary purpose is to serve as a dwelling and not as a mode of transportation. Id. at 770. Therefore, the defendant's conviction for burglary of a habitation was consistent with generic burglary, and the conviction constituted a predicate offense under S 924(e). In reaching this conclusion the court relied only upon the elements of the offense and did not allow an inquiry into the conduct that violated the Texas statute. Thus, contrary to the inference raised in Judge Garth's dissent, the court stated: we agree that it would have been error for the district court to inquire into the facts underlying Sweeten's Texas conviction. Id at 769. 72 Similarly, in Barney, the defendant had been convicted under a Wyoming statute that defined bur glary to include unauthorized entry into a building, occupied structure or vehicle, with the intent of committing a crime. 955 F.2d at 638. 5 The court of appeals upheld the sentencing court's enhancement of the defendant's sentence because the transcript of the guilty plea colloquy from the prior burglaries established that he had illegally entered a building, not a vehicle. Therefore, his prior burglary convictions satisfied the elements of generic burglary under S 924(e). Again, however, the court stated the limits of the inquiry. The court stated: 73 In determining whether a person has been convicted of a crime which may be counted toward enhancement under Taylor, a court must employ a categorical approach, rather than inquire into underlying facts. This requires a comparison of the elements of the relevant state statute with the basic elements of burglary identified in the Taylor decision. 74 955 F.2d at 638 (citations omitted). The court's holding was based upon the fact that Taylor allows `the sentencing court to go beyond the mere fact of conviction in a narrow range of cases where a jury was actually required to find all the elements of generic burglary.'  Id. at 639 (quoting Taylor, 110 S.Ct. at 2160). 75 Our situation is quite different. As noted above, the statute that governs Galo's enhancement requires a prior conviction of . . . laws . . . relating to the sexual exploitation of children. Therefore the enhancement is governed by whether the law the defendant previously violated relates to sexual exploitation of children. Section 2251(d) does not require a sentencing court to determine if the prior conviction satisfies the generic elements of a crime as does S 924(e). Rather, the sentencing court need only determine if the statute (not the conduct) the defendant was previously convicted of relates to the sexual exploitation of children. Moreover, our conclusion is consistent with the practical considerations that guided the Court's analysis in Taylor. As the Court noted there, the practical difficulties and potential unfairness of a factual approach are daunting. 495 U.S. at 601. We have previously cautioned that [a] case-by-case, fact specific approach [to applying an enhancement statute] . . . could force sentencing courts to hold mini-trials, hear evidence and witnesses and otherwise engage in a detailed examination of the specific facts involved in the prior offense, all of which would be avoided with a categorical approach [that focuses on the elements of the prior offense]. United States v. Preston, 910 F.2d 81, 85 n.3 (3d Cir. 1990). 76 Section S 2251(d) incorporates the categorical approach because it focuses the sentencing court's attention on the statutory definition of a prior conviction. It is the elements of a given statute, not the conduct that violates it that determines if the statute relates to sexual exploitation of children. 77 We conclude, therefore, that the district court erred when it considered Galo's prior conduct in determining whether he was subject to the S 2251(d) enhancement. The court should have focused only on the statutory definitions of those prior convictions. 78 Accordingly, we must examine the statutory definitions of the crimes Galo was previously convicted of and determine whether they are state laws . . .relating to the sexual exploitation of children. 79 As recited earlier, Galo's state convictions were for two counts each of : (1) Corruption of Minors in violation of 18 PA. CONS. STAT. ANN. S 6301; 2) Endangering the Welfare of a Child in violation of 18 PA. CONS. STAT. ANN. S 4304; and (3) Indecent Assault in violation of 18 PA. CONS. STAT. ANN. S 3126(a)(1) and (a)(2). 80 Corruption of Minors is defined as follows: 81 Whoever, being of the age of 18 years and upwards, by any act corrupts or tends to corrupt the morals of any minor less than 18 years of age, or who aids, abets, entices or encourages any such minor in the commission of any crime, or who knowingly assists or encourages such minor in violating his or her parole or any order of court, commits a misdemeanor of the first degree. 82 18 PA. CONS. STAT. ANN. S 6301 (emphasis added). It is readily apparent that although the statute can include conduct relating to the sexual exploitation of children, it pertains with equal force to conduct such as gambling, underage drinking or drug use. The statute is aimed at conduct of any nature that tends to corrupt children. It is broad enough to include allowing a minor to view an R rated video. 83 In deciding what conduct can be said to corrupt the morals of a minor, the common sense of the community, as well as the sense of decency, propriety and the morality which most people entertain is sufficient to apply the statute to each particular case, and to individuate what particular conduct is rendered criminal by it. 84 Commonwealth v. Decker, 698 A.2d 99, 101 (Pa. Super.1997) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Commonwealth v. Tau Kappa Epsilon, 530 Pa. 416 (1992) (fraternities prosecuted for corrupting the morals of minors based upon underage drinking). 85 Endangering the Welfare of a Child is defined as follows: 86 A parent, guardian, or other person supervising the welfare of a child under 18 years of age commits an offense if he knowingly endangers the welfare of the child by violating a duty of care, protection or support. 87 18 PA. CONS. STAT. ANN. S 4304. The statute clearly relates to a breach of the duty of care rather than sexual abuse or exploitation. It includes such conduct as parents refusing to obtain medically necessary treatment for a child based upon religious beliefs. See Commonwealth v. Barnhat, 497 A.2d 616, 623 (Pa. Super. 1985) ) (parent prosecuted for refusing to obtain medical treatment for child defended charges of endangering welfare of child, and involuntary manslaughter by explaining if I would go to a doctor I would be turning my back on my faith.). It also criminalizes such negligent parental conduct as leaving a plastic bag too close to a sleeping infant who subsequently suffocates. Commonwealth v. Fewell, 654 A.2d 1109 (Pa.Super., 1995), and intentional physical assaultive behavior of a nonsexual nature. Commonwealth v. Vining, 744 A.2d 310 (Pa. Super. 2000) (adult caregiver prosecuted for burns and beatings inflicted on toddler left in her care). 88 Indecent assault is a much closer call, because it obviously relates to the sexual nature of an offender's conduct. However, it criminalizes, and relates to, nonconsensual indecent touching regardless of the victim's age. Pennsylvania law establishes that this offense is committed when 89 [a] person who has indecent contact 6 with the complainant or causes the complainant to have indecent contact with the person is guilty of indecent assault if: (1) the person does so without the complainant's consent; (2) the person does so by forcible compulsion;. . . . 90 18 PA. CONS. STAT. ANN. S 3126(a)(1) and (a)(2). Galo's conduct would have constituted a violation of this statute regardless of the age of his victims. Although a minor could be the victim of this, or either of Galo's other two state offenses, none of the statutory definitions of those three crimes establish a conviction under laws relating to the sexual exploitation of children. 7 91 The government argues that applying the categorical approach would produce an absurd result because the enhanced penalty provisions of 18 U.S.C. S 2251(d) would only apply to defendants convicted in states with statutes that are specifically titled `sexual exploitation of children,' or that use these terms in their statutory definitions. Government's Br. at 31. We disagree. The S 2251(d) enhancement would apply if a defendant had a prior state conviction for involuntary deviate sexual intercourse as defined under the law of Pennsylvania. That offense imposes criminal liability for engaging in deviate sexual intercourse 8 with a complainant: . . . who is less than 13 years of age. . . . 18 PA. CONS. STAT. ANN. S 3123(a)(6). The definition does not contain the term sexual exploitation of children. Nevertheless, a prior conviction for this category of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse would subject a defendant to the S 2251(d) enhancement because the conviction would be for a crime relating to the sexual exploitation of children. Similarly, a prior conviction for statutory rape would establish a conviction under the laws of any State relating to the sexual exploitation of children and subject a defendant to the S 2251(d) enhancement. 9 Congress intended to condition enhancement under S 2251(d) on precisely this kind of prior conviction rather than on generic convictions that relate to sexual exploitation of minors only because of the specific conduct of the accused. As the Supreme Court noted in Taylor, only in this way can the enhancement be applied in a manner that is both uniform and practical. 92 In sum, because Galo has not previously been convicted for violating a law relating to the sexual exploitation of children, the district court improperly applied the S 2251(d) enhancement to Galo's sentence.