Opinion ID: 4556443
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Pennsylvania Involuntary Deviate Sexual

Text: Intercourse The necessary comparison quickly shows that Cabeda is correct in asserting that there is no categorical match between the Pennsylvania statutes and the generic federal offense of sexual abuse of a minor. The critical difference is found in the mens rea requirements – the state offense can be committed recklessly, whereas the federal generic crime requires a knowing mental state with regard to the sexual conduct. Cabeda’s offense of conviction is 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3123(a)(7), under which, a “person commits a felony of the first degree when the person engages in deviate sexual intercourse with a complainant… who is less than 16 years of age and the person is four or more year older than the complainant and the complainant and person are not married to each other.” The term “deviate sexual intercourse” is in turn defined in 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3101 as “[s]exual intercourse per os or per anus between human beings and any form of sexual intercourse with an animal. The term also includes penetration, however slight, of the genitals or anus of another person with a foreign object for any purpose other 19 than good faith medical, hygienic or law enforcement procedures.” Notably absent from either of those statutory provisions is any mens rea requirement. The Pennsylvania criminal code has a gap-filling provision,18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 302(c), for just such a circumstance: “When the culpability sufficient to establish a material element of an offense is not prescribed by law, such element is established if a person acts intentionally, knowingly or recklessly with respect thereto.” 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 302(c). Thus, the Pennsylvania code allows for prosecution under section 3123(a)(7) on the basis of behavior that is only reckless.9 9 Section 302 is not divisible in a way that would make the modified categorical approach appropriate. Although § 302(c) lists three types of mens rea in the disjunctive, Pennsylvania authority suggests that they are alternate means rather than elements. See Mathis v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2243, 2253 n.3 (2016) (noting that alternate “mental states are interchangeable means of satisfying a single mens rea element”). Section 302(c) itself refers to “the culpability sufficient to establish a material element of an offense[,]” and it provides alternative mental states for determining whether “such element is established[.]” Thus, the statute itself distinguishes between the elements of an offense and the alternative means, listed therein, of satisfying those elements. Pennsylvania caselaw too appears to treat the § 302(c) mental states as alternative means of satisfying a single statutory element. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Gallagher, 924 A.2d 636, 637 (Pa. 2007) (noting in prosecution for child luring that § 302(c) imposes a “duty to prove that [defendant] acted intentionally, knowingly, or at least recklessly”); 20 That conclusion is confirmed by Pennsylvania caselaw, which shows that other, closely related, statutes can be violated recklessly. For example, section 3125 of the same criminal code title prohibits “penetration, however slight, of the genitals or anus of a complainant with a part of the person’s body for any purpose other than good faith medical, hygienic or law enforcement procedures” where, among other possible circumstances, “the person has substantially impaired the complainant’s power to appraise or control his or her conduct by administering or employing, without the knowledge of the complainant, drugs, intoxicants or other means for the purpose of preventing resistance[.]” 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3125(a). The prohibition set forth in that daterape statute contains nearly identical wording to the statute Cabeda violated, and Pennsylvania courts have said that “the minimum mens rea for these offenses is recklessness.” Commonwealth v. Cosby, 224 A.3d 372, 419 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2019); accord Commonwealth v. Torsilieri, No. 2300 EDA 2018, 2019 WL 3854450, at  (Pa. Super. Ct. Aug. 16, Commonwealth v. Mayfield, 832 A.2d 418, 427 (Pa. 2003) (noting in prosecution for sexual assault that § 302(c) “require[s] the Commonwealth to prove at least recklessness”). We have also suggested as much. See Aguilar v. Att’y Gen., 663 F.3d 692, 695 & n.7 (3d Cir. 2011) (holding that sexual assault in violation of 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 3124.1 constitutes an INA “crime of violence” aggravated felony even though it can be committed recklessly under § 302(c), and noting that “the trial judge instructed the jury that they must find ‘that the defendant acted knowingly or at least recklessly regarding [the complainant’s] nonconsent’”). 21 2019). The mens rea catchall provision in section 302(c) is the underpinning for those decisions. Similarly, section 3126(a) prohibits “indecent contact[,]” with indecent contact defined in section 3101 as “[a]ny touching of the sexual or other intimate parts of the person for the purpose of arousing or gratifying sexual desire, in any person.” Again, Pennsylvania courts have concluded that the crime thus defined can be committed recklessly, based on section 302(c). See Torsilieri, 2019 WL 3854450, at  (explaining that the default mens rea of recklessness applies); Commonwealth v. Carter, 418 A.2d 537, 540-41 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1980) (same). That means that the Pennsylvania statutes are categorically broader than the federal generic crime of sexual abuse of a minor, since the federal offense must be committed knowingly, but the Pennsylvania crimes can be committed recklessly. Now, one might be forgiven for thinking that, as a matter of common sense, it is scarcely conceivable that one could, as a factual matter, recklessly commit the crime that Pennsylvania calls involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.10 That improbability, one might further think, should mean that the Pennsylvania statute actually is a categorical match for the generic crime of sexual abuse of a minor, because there is no realistic probability that Pennsylvania could or would enforce its statute in a way that would sweep in reckless conduct. Following that reasoning would allow for a more sensible 10 And yet, given the breadth of the statutory language prohibiting penetration “however slight,” reckless violation of the law is not as absurd as it might seem at first glance. See infra at n.12. 22 result here, the semantic strictures of the categorical approach notwithstanding. Unfortunately, that analytical route is also barred by binding precedent. It is true the Supreme Court has stated that, at least under certain circumstances, the categorical approach “requires a realistic probability, not a theoretical possibility, that the State would apply its statute to conduct that falls outside the generic definition of a crime.” Gonzales v. Duenas-Alvarez, 549 U.S. 183, 193 (2007). And it is further true that, in other circuits, Cabeda’s arguments may well have failed because of the improbability of applying a statute like Pennsylvania’s to prosecute reckless conduct. See United States v. Castillo-Rivera, 853 F.3d 218, 223 (5th Cir. 2017) (en banc) (“There is no exception to the actual case requirement articulated in Duenas-Alvarez where a court concludes a state statute is broader on its face.”). “Our Court’s precedent, however, takes [an] alternative approach.” Salmoran v. Att’y Gen., 909 F.3d 73, 81 (3d Cir. 2018). We have held that “where the elements of the crime of conviction are not the same as the elements of the generic federal offense … the realistic probability inquiry … is simply not meant to apply.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). So, once we conclude that the textual breadth of a statute is more expansive than the federal generic crime because the mens rea elements are different, a petitioner need not show that there is a realistic chance that the statute will actually be applied in an overly broad manner. See Zhi Fei Liao v. Att'y Gen., 910 F.3d 714, 723 (3d Cir. 2018) (noting that “it is unnecessary to conduct a realistic probability inquiry” when “the elements of [the state] conviction … [do] not match the elements of the generic 23 federal offense”); Singh v. Att’y Gen., 839 F.3d 273, 286 n.10 (3d Cir. 2016) (noting that the realistic probability inquiry does not apply when “the elements of the crime of conviction are not the same as the elements of the generic federal offense”). Thus, the mismatch between the mens rea of the federal generic crime and the Pennsylvania involuntary deviate sexual intercourse statute leads inevitably to the conclusion that they are not a categorical match. We are left with no option, then, but to conclude that Cabeda’s multiple statutory rapes of a 15-year-old boy do not qualify as sexual abuse of a minor within the meaning of the INA. What a world.