Opinion ID: 179238
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Statute. .Sex trafficking of children or by force, fraud, or coercion

Text: (a) Whoever knowingly (1) in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, or within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, recruits, entices, harbors, transports, provides, or obtains by any means a person; or (2) benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value, from participation in a venture which has engaged in an act described in violation of paragraph (1), knowing that force, fraud, or coercion described in subsection (c)(2) will be used to cause the person to engage in a commercial sex act, or that the person has not attained the age of 18 years and will be caused to engage in a commercial sex act, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b). (b) The punishment for an offense under subsection(a) is (1) if the offense was effected by force, fraud, or coercion or if the person recruited, enticed, harbored, transported, provided, or obtained had not attained the age of 14 years at the time of such offense, by a fine under this title and imprisonment for any term of years not less than 15 or for life; or (2) if the offense was not so effected, and the person recruited, enticed, harbored, transported, provided, or obtained had attained the age of 14 years but had not attained the age of 18 years at the time of such offense, by a fine under this title and imprisonment for not less than 10 years or for life. (c) In this section: (1) The term commercial sex act means any sex act, on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person. (2) The term coercion means (A) threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; (B) any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; or (C) the abuse or threatened abuse of law or the legal process. (3) The term venture means any group of two or more individuals associated in fact, whether or not a legal entity. 18 U.S.C. § 1591. We consider the statutory elements in turn. Effect on interstate or foreign commerce. The TVPA was enacted after Congress took a substantial amount of evidence on the traffic in the sexual services of women based on importing women from around the world by force or fraud. See Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000, Pub.L. No. 106-386, 114 Stat. 1464, 1466 (2000). Congress concluded that prostitution in American cities encouraged and enlarged the market for this traffic from abroad. Id. Sex traffic is a global matter. In addition to its effect on foreign commerce, sex traffic in this case was conducted by advertising across state lines and so affected interstate commerce. The TVPA is unlike the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. § 13981, which sought to protect women by making gender-motivated crimes of violence actionable and was found to be beyond the power of Congress because its subject matter was not commerce. United States v. Morrison, 529 U.S. 598, 120 S.Ct. 1740, 146 L.Ed.2d 658 (2000). The TVPA deals with commerce within the power of Congress to regulate. The defendant does not question the act's constitutionality. Todd's knowledge. Here is a crux. Could Todd have known when he soft-soaped Whitney T., Whitney E., and Jemelle L. to go to work for him that later force, fraud, or coercion would be used to cause each of them to engage in commercial sex? How does anyone know the future? What the statute means to describe, and does describe awkwardly, is a state of mind in which the knower is familiar with a pattern of conduct. If to know is taken in the sense of being sure of an established fact, no one knows his own or anyone else's future. As William Shakespeare said of time in Sonnet 115, its million'd accidents creep in and nothing is completely stable, no plan is beyond alteration. When an act of Congress requires knowledge of a future action, it does not require knowledge in the sense of certainty as to a future act. What the statute requires is that the defendant know in the sense of being aware of an established modus operandi that will in the future cause a person to engage in prostitution. The government's evidence showed that Todd had such awareness when he persuaded Whitney T. to work for him. He had an established practice of living off the earnings of Kelsey, doing so by rules controlling her work and payment of the proceeds to him. The jury could conclude that Todd knew he would follow the same pattern with Whitney T. and then with Whitney E. and Jemelle L. Just as a mother who has had one child in school and prepared his lunch knows that she will prepare the school lunch for her second child, just as a judge knows that his law clerks will use Westlaw, so Jerome Todd knew that he would use coercion to cause his sex workers to make money for him. The findings of the jury. The jury was instructed: The defendant is charged with count 2 of the first superseding indictment with sex trafficking, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1591(a)(1) and 1591(b)(1). In order for the defendant to be found guilty of that charge, the government must prove each of the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt: First, beginning in or about February 2007, and continuing through in or about July 2007, the defendant knowingly did recruit, entice, harbor, transport, provide, or obtain a person, that is, [Whitney T.]; Second, the defendant did so knowing that force, fraud, or coercion would be used to cause [Whitney T]. to engage in a commercial sex act; and Third, the defendant's actions were in or affecting interstate commerce. The jury answered these questions affirmatively as to Whitney T. and answered the same questions affirmatively as to Whitney E. and Jemelle L. The evidence of Todd's knowledge of his own modus operandi in securing an income from prostitution by a pattern of coercion was sufficient to support the jury's verdict. The knowledge required of the defendant is such that if things go as he has planned, force, fraud or coercion will be employed to cause his victim to engage in a commercial sex transaction. That required knowledge brings the predictable use of force, fraud, or coercion into the definition of the defendant's crime. The sentence. Section (b) is entitled The punishment for an offense under subsection (a). Section (b), therefore, does not create a new crime. It specifies the penalties for each of the crimes set out in (a). Two of these crimes depend on the age of the victim. The third crime is referenced summarily as an offense effected by force, fraud or coercion. The summary reference does not enlarge the crime identified in (a). Section (b) is punishing the act identified in (a). A defendant who satisfies the elements of subsection (a)  shall be punished as provided in subsection (b). 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a) (emphasis added). This reading comports with Congress's desire that the sentencing provision of section 1591(b) ... correspond fully with the language in the substantive offense provision in section 1591(a). H.R.Rep. No. 108-264, pt. 1, at 20 (2003) (emphasis added). The evidence was enough to support Todd's conviction on the counts of sex trafficking.