Opinion ID: 3010928
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Rationality of the Means-Ends Connection

Text: The final step in our inquiry is to determine whether the means chosen by Congress are reasonably adapted to the ends permitted by the Constitution. See Hodel, 452 U.S. at 276. We believe that there is a rational connection between the regulatory means (punishing the intrastate possession of child pornography) and the asserted ends (prohibiting interstate commerce in child pornography and reducing the inevitable harm to children that stems from their involvement in child pornography). See, e.g., United States v. Franklyn, 157 F.3d 90, 96 (2d Cir. 1998) (finding that prohibiting possession of machine guns was reasonable means of freezing, and ultimately eliminating, the largely interstate market for them); United States v. Cardoza, 129 F.3d 6, 12 (1st Cir. 1997) (finding that Congress's decision to punish both the supply (sale or transfer) and demand (possession) sides of the handgun market was a means reasonably calculated to achieve its end). This is so even though Congress's means were not crafted with ultimate precision. Before S 2252 was amended to include the subsection at issue here, it was costly for pornographers to traffic in pornography across state lines, though it was costless (at least under federal law) to manufacture and use pornography intrastate. Section 2252(a)(4)(B) made it as costly to engage in the latter activity as in the former. Congress's amendment thus would likely have had two effects. First, some pornographers would decide that the costs of continuing to make and possess child pornography were too high, and those pornographers would leave the industry entirely--a result Congress clearly intended. Second, a reasonable 26 pornographer might conclude that, after the enactment of S 2252(a)(4)(B), he had no incentive to continue to act purely intrastate, since he was committing a crime whether he made or used pornography that had passed interstate or that had remained intrastate. Thus, some homegrown pornographers might have turned to the interstate market, increasing the interstate demand for child pornography. We are troubled by the lack of express Congressional findings about the effect of intrastate possession of child pornography on interstate commerce. We acknowledge, however, that [o]ur ability to imagine ways of redesigning the statute to advance one of Congress' ends does not render it irrational. . . . The history of congressional attempts to address the problem . . . provides sufficient reason to defer to the legislative judgment that [the statute in question] is an appropriate answer. Preseault v. Interstate Commerce Comm'n, 494 U.S. 1, 19 (1990) (quoting Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U.S. 456, 469 (1981)). More importantly, we are satisfied-- in view of the teachings of Wickard's progeny, buttressed by the fact that Congress has long legislated in this area and was conscious of the need to close a loophole in a statute governing interstate commerce--that S 2252(a)(4)(B) was a reasonable exercise of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause. The judgment of the District Court will be affirmed. 27