Opinion ID: 3011766
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sentence Enhancement Pursuant to

Text: 18 U.S.C. S 2251(d). Galo's challenge to the district court's sentencing enhancement is more troubling. 18 U.S.C.S 2251(d) provides in relevant part: 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, _________________________________________________________________ 3. As noted above, the camera and film that Galo used both traveled in interstate commerce. 8 such person shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not less than fifteen (15) years nor more than thirty (30) years . . . . 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 pr eschool years up to fifth grade. According to the niece, the abuse initially consisted of vaginal touching, but it pr ogressed 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 confir med that Galo had also sexually abused them. 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 r eached 13. That abuse also consisted of oral sex and touching of genitalia. 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. On March 16, 1991, Galo appeared befor e 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 wer e dropped pursuant to a plea agreement. The court accepted the plea and sentenced Galo to one and one-half to thr ee 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 r esiding in a home where minors were present. He was on parole when he became involved with Sheila. 9 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 deter mined 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 Galo now argues that the district court incorr ectly 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 acategorical approach in deciding whether the enhancement provisions of S 2251(d) applied. Under the categorical approach, the _________________________________________________________________ 4. As calculated by the U. S. Probation Office, Galo's total offense level was 28 and his criminal history category was II, yielding a guideline range for imprisonment of 87 months (7.25 years) to 108 months (9 years). Presentence Report (PSR) atPP 29, 32, 64. However, the statutorily required minimum sentence for violating S 2251(a) is 120 months (10 years) for individuals who have never been convicted of any of the federal crimes specified in S 2251(d) or convicted of an offense relating to the sexual exploitation of childr en under the law of any state. 18 U.S.C. S 2251(d). The statutorily r equired minimum sentence for violating S 2251(a) is 180 months (15 years) for individuals who have one prior conviction for any of the federal crimes specified in S 2251(d) or one prior conviction for an offense relating to the sexual exploitation of children under the law of any state. Id. Pursuant to U.S.S.G. S 5G1.1(b), [w]here a statutorily requir ed minimum sentence is greater than the maximum of the applicable guideline range, the statutorily required minimum sentence shall be the guideline sentence. Section 2251(d) further provides that if a defendant has 2 or more convictions under this chapter [18 U.S.C.S 2251 et seq.] or chapter 109A, or chapter 117, or under the laws of any State relating to the sexual exploitation of children, such person shall be . . . imprisoned not less than 30 years nor more than life. However, in the district court the parties agreed that although Galo pled guilty to multiple offenses, those prior offenses would amount to only one prior conviction for purposes of sentence enhancement under S 2251(d), because his pleas were entered simultaneously. App. at 149-151. 10 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). In Taylor, the defendant conditionally pled guilty to being a convicted felon-in-possession of a firear m 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: (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. . . . (2) As used in this subsection-- . . . . . (B) the term `violent felony' means any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year . . . that-- (i) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; or (ii) is burglary [or other specified offenses] or otherwise involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another. Id. at 578. Taylor conceded that his prior convictions for assault and robbery counted toward the enhancement because they involved the use of physical for ce 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 wher e he was 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 inS 924(e)(2)(B)(ii) 11 means burglary however a state chooses to define it. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 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 inquiryon 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: 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. 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. 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 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. 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 r elied, in part, on the 12 Taylor rationale and held that the Bur eau 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). The language of the relevant statute her e is even clearer than the text of the statutes involved in T aylor 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 ofS 2251(d) does not fairly support that interpretation.