Opinion ID: 6114997
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mandatory Life Sentence

Text: The district court sentenced Skaggs to life in prison, believing that 18 U.S.C. § 3559(e) imposed a mandatory life sentence for his sexual exploitation convictions. Section 3559(e) provides that a person convicted of a federal sex oﬀense against a minor “shall be sentenced to life imprisonment” if 12 No. 20-1229 he has a prior sex conviction in which the victim was a minor. A qualifying oﬀense includes a state sex oﬀense that carries a prison term greater than a year and “consists of conduct that would be a Federal sex oﬀense” if federal jurisdiction had existed. 18 U.S.C. § 3559(e)(2)(B). Skaggs argues that his prior state conviction for sexual misconduct with a minor was not a qualifying oﬀense under § 3559(e) because the applicable state statute is broader than its supposed federal analogue, 18 U.S.C. § 2243. The government concedes that the district court made an error, albeit a diﬀerent one. The district court found that Skaggs’s prior state conviction corresponded to a “Federal sex oﬀense” under 18 U.S.C. § 2243. But that provision—§ 2243— is not included in the narrow deﬁnition of “Federal sex offense” that triggers § 3559(e)’s mandatory life provision. See 18 U.S.C. § 3559(e)(2)(A) (listing the federal statutes that count as federal sex oﬀenses). Accordingly, the application of § 3559(e) was erroneous. Nonetheless, the error was harmless because the same sentence would have been imposed despite the error. See United States v. Anderson, 517 F.3d 953, 965 (7th Cir. 2008) (“An error is harmless if it ‘did not aﬀect the district court’s selection of the sentence imposed.’” (quoting Williams v. United States, 503 U.S. 193, 203 (1992))). At sentencing, the district court stated, “[I]n any event, in my discretion, I would impose a life sentence on Counts 1 through 9 even if it weren’t a mandatory life sentence because of the seriousness of the conduct that was reﬂected in Counts 1 through 9.” The sentence was within the guidelines range of 360 months to life. The court explained how the sentence reﬂected the relevant 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) factors, taking into No. 20-1229 13 account “the nature and circumstances of these oﬀenses, which are pretty breathtakingly serious, some of the most serious charges the [c]ourt faces,” as well as Skaggs’s “history and characteristics,” noting that his pedophilia has been “persistent” and “a long-term problem.” The court also acknowledged “troublesome facts”—like Skaggs’s activities focusing on girls in Ukraine and his attempt to hide a backup copy of his illicit materials—“that reinforced my opinion that this has been a very long pattern of behavior that has to be curtailed by the [c]ourt’s sentence today.” Because the district court said it would have imposed a life sentence in any event and discussed the § 3553(a) factors that supported the sentence, its error was harmless, and “any remand to the district court for it to impose the same sentence on [Skaggs] would be a ‘pointless step.’” United States v. Lovies, 16 F.4th 493, 508 (7th Cir. 2021) (quoting United States v. Jett, 982 F.3d 1072, 1078 (7th Cir. 2020)).